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FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF EUROPE 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF 
EUROPE 



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JOSEPH WHITMAN BAILEY 

AUTHOR OF " THE ST. JOHN RIVER," ETC. 



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THE GRAFTON PRESS 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



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.IbliARY ot OONWKESSJ! 
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MAY 29 1908 
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Copyright, 1908 
By THE GRAFTON PRESS 



PREFACE 

The title of this little volume might well serve for 
its preface also. On his first return from abroad, the 
novice, possibly because familiarity has some tendency 
to blunt intuition and dim the vividness of national 
contrasts, is apt to be more closely questioned about 
his impressions than is the veteran traveler. Such im- 
pressions, however, while frequently they may be of 
value in disclosing new view-points, should, in many 
cases, be offered tentatively, and rather as personal 
opinions than finalities. Our journey was undertaken 
without pre-consultation of guide-books. When visit- 
ing a famous place, first the results of observation and 
direct local inquiry were noted; then Baedeker and his 
professional brethren were consulted, but merely for 
corroboration or a few essential statistics. We can 
recommend every step of the tour herein described to 
those entering upon their European novitiate; indeed, 
we have hopes that the book, with all its limitations, 
may prove a convenient vade-mecum to more experi- 
enced travelers, and help them to while away a few 
hours of oceanic monotony. 



CONTENTS 



The Voyage 11 

Liverpool 14 

London 16 

Hampton Court 29 

Warwick 31 

A Drive to Kenilworth 33 

Stratford-on-Avon 35 

Oxford 36 

Windsor and Eton 39 

Antwerp 42 

Brussels .43 

The Hague . . 47 

Amsterdam 49 

Cologne 50 

The Rhine 52 

Heidelberg 56 

Lucerne 58 

The Rigi and Mt. Pilatus 60 

Interlaken and the Grindelwald 63 

The City and Lake of Geneva 66 

The Journey to Paris 68 

Paris 70 

Versailles 75 

St. Albans 77 

Torquay and Vicinity 79 

Chester 83 

Eaton Hall 85 

Conway and Carnarvon 88 

De Omnibus Rebus 91 

The Homeward Voyage 97 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Rhine Frontispiece 

"Stray dogs and cats of the early Georgian Era" . Facing page 28 

Kenilworth Castle from the Tilt-yard . . "34 

The Hague " "48^ 

The Rhine " " 54 / 

"Do not laugh again in France" 69 

Parc de Versailles Facing page 76 

Farm near Torquay " "80 

Water Tower and Roman Remains at Chester ' 84 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF 
EUROPE 

THE VOYAGE 

Having, in other years, devoted vacations wholly to 
forest exploration, with Indian and canoe, a pleasing 
thrill of novelty pervaded us as we paced the deck of 
the Canadian Pacific steamship Empress of Ireland, 
which sailed from Quebec for Liverpool on July 12, 
1907. As a feature of this route, Quebec, the terminus a 
quo, presents the most foreign appearance of any Amer- 
ican city north of Mexico, while Liverpool, the termi- 
nus ad quern, is credited, against the vigorous protest 
of sturdy Britishers, with more marked American pro- 
clivities than any other city of Europe. 

Swiftly we glided down the St. Lawrence's world- 
famed estuary, obtaining fine views of the Lauren- 
tides, the many islands, and Montmorenci's silvery cas- 
cade. On the journey from Montreal, the day previous 
the rivers had swept turbidly in semi-flood, while the 
fields exhibited charming color diversity, now dark 
green with oats, now lighter green with hay, in places 
golden with buttercups, or spangled like drifted snow 
with myriads of white daisies. We doubted if Europe 
would disclose fairer scenes. 

Our ponderous vessel closely skirted Gaspe's rugged 
peninsula, where many pellucid salmon streams have 



12 First Impressions of Europe 

carved deep forest-clad ravines, and on the fourteenth, 
at evening, passed out through dreaded Belle Isle 
Straits into open sea. A few fine icebergs, one of them 
black with birds, floated about Belle Isle, glittering re- 
splendently in the sunshine, but resembling, when shad- 
owed by clouds, the weird canvas imitations so often 
seen at beach resorts. The Straits looked unexpectedly 
wide, while along their desolate north shore patches 
of verdant grass alternated with banks of spotless 
snow. Bleak Labrador's semi-arctic coasts are thus, 
indeed, seen from afar by many people, although 
visited by few. Clear and very cold weather prevailed 
near Belle Isle, a truly brumal temperature, which the 
balmy Gulf Stream soon raised so steadily and rapidly, 
that a lady, quite forty years of age, moved hastily 
(perhaps needlessly) one day from a sunny spot on deck, 
observing, " I do not wish to be broiled chicken! " 

Our fellow passengers, as a rule, were rather staid 
people, little inclined to festivity, vocal or terpsichorean. 
Human aggregations, however, always include pe- 
culiar characters. Everybody from the saloon to the 

steerage soon became acquainted with Major , 

a gallant and efficient officer until affected by sunstroke 
in India, but now ever amusing, disdainful of sobriety, 
and continually rebuffed for over-attention to the 
ladies. One freakish woman dressed even for break- 
fast in black silk, low-necked, and publicly announced, 
perhaps to clear the path for fresh victims, that she 
had given her husband "a peach of a funeral" before 
sailing. Alfred Bertrand, a Swiss explorer of the High 
Zambesi, and a good friend of the late H. M. Stanley, 
walked sturdily to and fro in all weathers, and proved 
instructively entertaining. We sat at the Doctor's table, 



The Voyage 13 

next to a chatty and attractive little pink and white 
Euphrosyne. A sleep-talking gentleman shared the 
stateroom with Pater and me, and prattled merrily the 
livelong night. 

Between Belle Isle and the north Irish coast exactly 
four days of rough voyaging elapsed. On the sixteenth 
the seas became mountainous, spray-drenching the 
upper decks. Dark threatening water-ridges, Alps of 
the Atlantic, rolled by unceasingly, topped with seeth- 
ing froth, and those filmy moisture veils that drift like 
dry dust, and look so icy cold. Several passengers 
toppled from deck chairs, and finally through Heaven's 
mercy our sleep-talking friend, unceremoniously pitched 
from his berth, remained silent for half an hour. Gales 
swept upon us from all points. Some made our Em- 
press pitch, in others she rolled, but at worst she es- 
caped the unpleasantly multifarious movements of 
small coast steamers. Our party, — Pater, Sister and 
I — withstood, with stoic calm and fair success, Old 
Ocean's restless vagaries. On the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth the water appeared intensely blue, even in foamy 
parts, while the wake resembled a broad lane painted 
with indigo. So remarkable a color, we thought, could 
hardly be due wholly to sky reflection. 

Excepting a few birds, no ocean life, not even a play- 
ful porpoise within the waves or a lonely sail above 
them, varied throughout the voyage the monotonous 
prospect of dull gray heaving sea; while darkness and 
fog effectually hid Old Erin and the proud little Isle 
of Man. At length, when actually within the outer 
Mersey, a vessel that seemed as strangely foreign as 
anything subsequently observed in our travels spread 
to the breeze her grotesquely patched sails, brightly 



14 First Impressions of Europe 

gleaming, quite unlike the white or gray canvas of 
America, as if coated with a lustrous copper bronze. 
Several similar ships soon splashed about in the silt- 
laden waves; while the shores rapidly converged, and 
the smoke of distant factories clouded the eastern sky- 
line. Then we went below, where the stewards and their 
many satellites now haunted the great steamer, seek- 
ing from passengers the gold that should, we thought, 
be paid if at all by the wealthy corporation they served. 



LIVERPOOL 

Once only in life can we have the peculiar sensation 
produced by a first view of "foreign parts." Ascend- 
ing the Mersey, great banks and beaches of brown sand, 
bare at first, afterwards lined with long rows of cottages, 
appeared on both sides; then the little harbor steamers, 
sturdy craft, safer but less graceful than ours, dodged 
about everywhere. In mid-harbor the great Lusitania 
swung gently with the tide, preparatory to her maiden 
voyage. Wiseacres asserted, as usual, that no greater 
vessel would ever be launched; and we recalled with 
amusement an article published in the " New York 
Evening Post " of March 12, 1815, which said of the 
steamer Robert Fulton (three hundred and forty-seven 
tons) " it is hardly possible that anything of the kind 
can excel her in elegance and convenience." 

If Liverpool really resembles any American town, it 
must be in its rapid growth, predominance of com- 
mercialism, and scarcity of mediaeval monuments; for 
our buildings are much less sombre than Liverpool's, 
and its streets, while thronged with shoppers, lack the 



Liverpool 15 

breezy effervescence of Yankeedom. Then observe all 
those dark colossal lions before St. George's Hall, 
surely as typically British as the smoke wreathed dome 
of St. Paul's. 

Our first English walk, from the dock to the North- 
western Hotel, aroused a strange feeling scarcely sus- 
ceptible of analysis. After luncheon we enjoyed an 
extended 'bus ride, now clattering down aristocratic av- 
enues, now threading tortuous lanes, narrow, dirty and 
malodorous. Liverpool's "shimmy" sections are bad 
indeed, and as capable as the more famous White- 
chapel of disclosing a Fagin, an "Artful Dodger," or 
a Bill Sykes. Dire poverty, as evidened by beggar 
girls in tattered rags, all too boldly invades the chief 
thoroughfares. The two-storied omnibuses and trams, 
common to Liverpool and many other English and 
continental towns, afford much pleasure. Such lofty 
vehicles might prove unsafe in our more uneven streets. 

New Brighton, a popular and somewhat cheap shore 
resort on the Birkenhead side, where the sand is too 
soft for a good beach, suggests Coney Island as viewed 
through the large end of a telescope. Cheap restau- 
rants and merry-go-rounds cluster grotesquely in one 
part along a narrow walk facetiously called " Kctm and 
Eggs promenade." The New Brighton visitor should 
return to Liverpool by water, and at night, when so 
many lights sparkle from city-girt shores, great ships, 
countless tugs and various small craft. 



16 First Impressions of Europe 

LONDON 

Rarely indeed do famous places at first view corre- 
spond with our preconceived and too exalted ideals. 
Even London, with its twenty-mile spread, its prestige 
of age, history and wealth, its unique centralization of 
all things British, whether social or politic, proves no 
exception to the rule. We experienced a vague disap- 
pointment, in first rambling about its great commer- 
cial arteries, all of which, after the analogy of the 
human heart, are supposedly vitalized by the homely 
Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, at beholding a less 
irresistible surging of the human tide than had been 
anticipated. London, biggest of all cities, should, we 
argued, look the biggest; but in fact no views unfolded 
comparable to the gay scenes of New York's fascinat- 
ing Broadway. Possibly an absence of immense office 
buildings and "sky-scraping" hotels, the Himalayas 
of human industry, accounted for the difference. Near 
the Savoy, a policeman as if reading our thoughts ex- 
plained, quite apologetically, the reasons why the 
Strand was not just then gorged with traffic; indeed 
these legal myrmidons suffer wounded pride whenever 
strangers find this famous street uncrowded, — false to 
its traditional hurry-skurry. However, in its huge and 
beautiful parks, its vast collections all more complete 
than ours, in garden, gallery and museum, and in the 
many venerable buildings that mark successive steps in 
England's political and social evolution, London fully 
realizes expectations. 

The Thames below Lambeth Palace presents con- 
trasts as marked as those of New York's East River. 
Great public buildings, esplanades and luxurious hotels 



London 17 

fronting the north bank, while on the Surrey side, the 
Brooklyn of England, dilapidated quays project, and 
numerous old boats and scows at ebb-tide recline like 
lazy alligators on the black and viscous ooze. Many 
small steamers operated by the London County Coun- 
cil ply between Putney and Greenwich, thus affording 
a unique excursion through the entire metropolitan dis- 
trict. Below London Bridge, in "The Pool," sailing 
vessels, steamers, tugs and barges wriggle about in the 
yellow muddy waves like vehicles in busy Cheapside, 
while powerful currents add to their difficulties. The 
tide laves grim old warehouses, such as inspired the pen 
of Dickens and the pencil of Whistler; and involun- 
tarily we searched the murky eddies, as if expecting to 
behold the Thames-borne body of Quilp. Here many 
vessels have tanned sails, stained a dark-brownish red. 
Above Westminster Bridge, the river is much less fre- 
quented now than in Tudor times, when, as the Lon- 
don streets were dreadfully rough, and the rumbling 
'bus was unknown, gay courtiers and fair ladies usually 
" took water," as the phrase went, and floated up and 
down the stream in brightly canopied barges. 

Among London's famous places the British Museum 
invites the most frequent inspection, as every fresh 
ramble through its great halls usually discloses many 
things previously overlooked. In all its wealth of ex- 
hibits, so varied and so well arranged, that most in- 
teresting to us, even more so than the Rosetta Stone, 
the Elgin Marbles, or the illuminated manuscripts in 
the vast library, was the neolithic man, crouching be- 
side his cooking tools in a tomb hewn from solid rock, 
and still retaining, although he wandered by the Nile 
some thousands of years before the Pharaohs, a strong 
B 



18 First Impressions of Europe 

suggestion of his actual appearance in life. The Muse- 
um's South Kensington branch, devoted to natural 
history, affords almost as much interest as the main in- 
stitution, particularly in its artistically arranged illus- 
trations of mimicry in animal life. 

Having innocently appropriated a mere half day for 
St. Paul's and the Tower, we were much astonished 
when by luncheon hour the venerable Cathedral had 
been but cursorily inspected, the Tower as yet un- 
visited. The sunbeams, which from windows far above 
streamed softly and mysteriously into the yellow-gray 
interior of St. Paul's, produced impressions not easily 
erased, even though the stained glass is not comparable 
to that of some other churches. As viewed from the 
Stone Gallery girting the famous dome, London hazy 
with dust and smoke spreads indefinitely on all sides, 
while luckily no Singer and Flat-iron buildings, like 
those of our " Gotham," arise yet higher to obstruct the 
view. In the Whispering Gallery, when a custodian 
whispers with lips close to the wall, the sound many 
times magnified passes around the tower, seemingly 
not as an echo but in the very stone, to astonished lis- 
teners on the opposite side. Here, in a land of many 
tips, we withheld, experimentally, the usual six-pence; 
whereupon the poor old custodian suggestively rattling 
pennies in his trousers pockets hobbled so woefully 
after us, that the experiment was abandoned, as savor- 
ing of Spanish cruelty. Sir Christopher Wren's mas- 
sive account book in the church library, used while 
building the Cathedral, contains the following, among 
interesting subscriptions towards rebuilding after the 
Great Fire, — " I will give one thousand pounds a yeare 
Whithall 20 March 1677-8-Charles R." Of course 



London 19 

the Merry Monarch never really paid anything. In 
the crypt, Wellington's massive and sombre funeral car, 
constructed with all its elaborate carving in eighteen 
days but at enormous cost, reminded us by contrast of 
a sign, " Economy in funerals," displayed by a shrewd 
undertaker in Liverpool. St. Paul's has outwardly 
that frosty appearance characteristic of many old Lon- 
don buildings, as if a flurry of smoke-stained snow 
rested on the dark weather-beaten stone. 

Passing the Fire Monument (commemorative of the 
"Annus Mirabilis" — 1666), which has in marked de- 
gree the "frosty" characteristic of London antiquities, 
and also noisy, dirty Billingsgate, an institution much 
better avoided, we entered the curtilage of the Tower. 
An unfortunate commingling of recent buildings, mostly 
barracks, with the more ancient piles rather impairs 
the tout ensemble of this most darkly famous of all 
fortresses. St. John's Chapel, while yet displaying the 
distinctive chiselling of its Norman builders, rather be- 
lies its great age. The White Tower, founded by the 
Conqueror, designed by Gundulph, Bishop of Roches- 
ter, and modernized by Wren, contains the splendid 
martial museum, — old armor, feudal and post-feudal 
weapons of strange design, instruments of torture, 
and rare relics of England's old wars, — all of which, 
however, hinder a true conception of the tower itself. 
Here brightly gleam the steel armors of Henry VIII 
and the all-gilt suit of mail presented to Charles II. 
Indeed, in all collections, especially the Crown jewels, 
the second Charles would seem to have been a greater 
recipient of gifts than other monarchs, a probable re- 
sult of the mental pendulum's wide swing after the joy- 
ful Restoration. A Governor's order, for which we 



20 First Impressions of Europe 

carelessly neglected to apply, is necessary to visit the 
Tower dungeons and Little Ease. Tower Hill, apart 
from its awful associations, possesses little interest. 
The very ghosts that dance there in the pale moonlight 
have no longer a scaffold to hang their shrouds upon. 

The Wakefield Tower holds the regalia of England, 
a dazzling array, valued at three or four million pounds, 
resplendent with sparkling diamonds, lustrous pearls, 
and the dull sheen of beaten gold. Possibly the jewels 
exhibited are mere copies, and the originals carefully 
secreted elsewhere. The crown of Edward VII, its 
velvet parts changed by him from crimson to royal 
purple, properly surmounts the pile. Such an aston- 
ishing number of elegantly wrought gold maces and 
sceptres, articles more frequently changed than the other 
regalia, might sufficiently tempt some modern brigand 
to emulate Colonel Blood of treasonable memory. 

Mural tablets and inscriptions, carved by illustrious 
state prisoners, adorn a circular chamber of the Beau- 
champ Tower. One carving, evidently the result of 
many successive attempts, occupies a square cutting 
two inches deep; another, and the most artistic of all, 
displays the "Bear and Ragged Staff" of Leicester. 
The profound impression created by these closely 
clustered inscriptions greatly diminishes when we learn 
that many of them during a renovation in 1854 were 
removed to the Beauchamp Tower from other parts of 
the fortress. Our calm reflections on the mutations of 
royal favoritism were rudely disturbed by a noisy party 
of "Cook's Sheep," led by a red-skirted " beef -eater," 
who sonorously shouted "Souvenirs for sale." 

Returning from the Tower we fortunately witnessed 
the Lord Mayor, his suite and guests, leaving the Man- 



London 21 

sion House for Guildhall. What a display of blue and 
gold was there! Carriages that looked as if dipped 
bodily into vats of molten yellow metal, and fat, rubi- 
cund, powdered-haired coachmen, who seemed to have 
taken a swim in the same material. No wonder a typ- 
ical London crowd had gathered to applaud. The 
Guildhall buildings contain an interesting museum of 
London antiquities not generally visited, with relics of 
Roman occupation and the black whipping post of old 
Newgate. The aldermen meet in a circular chamber, 
a gem in its carving, but of recent date. 

All the great London parks, — and where may greater 
be found? — Hyde, Battersea, St. James's, Regent's, 
Victoria, Kensington Gardens, — provide charming fa- 
cilities for exercise and recreation. St. James's is the 
most historic. Here beside the placid Serpentine King 
Charles II delighted to watch the noisy waterfowl, as 
on warm summer days they splashed about amid the 
reeds and lilies, while His jovial Majesty's pretty mis- 
tresses and fawning courtiers lingered in the adjoining 
arbors, and, with or without the royal connivance, 
hatched many an unworthy little plot. Regent's and 
Battersea Parks excel in shrubberies and flowers. At 
Hyde Park we wandered over acres of meadow, coun- 
try-like with pasturing sheep; or watched, although 
fashion's tide was in ebb, an unending stream of aris- 
tocratic carriages and riders down famous Rotten Row, 
a name curiously corrupted from Route du Roi. The 
celebrated " Zoo " in Regent's Park is as extensive and 
complete as other London collections; and capacious 
animal houses and lofty aviaries, separated by shrub- 
beries and shaded walks, scatter widely over undulat- 
ing land. King Edward has enriched the Zoo with 



22 First Impressions of Europe 

a cross-bred zebra horse from the Transvaal, a curious 
freak, which resembles a common brown horse in 
shape and color, but has zebra stripes. 

Buckingham Palace, His Majesty's present city resi- 
dence, dark and grim as viewed from St. James's Park, 
faces a black court-yard unadorned by a single grass 
blade and of much the same color as the building; 
while a lofty railing, black below, glittering with gilt 
above, augments the general Satanic effect. St. James 
Palace, used even yet for royal receptions and levees, 
presents some rambling old black structures partially 
erected by Henry VIII on the site of an ancient " Hos- 
pital for leprous maids." "Though I do not think so 
lowly of St. James's as others," observes Windham, an 
eighteenth-century writer, "yet still I must say, if it 
does not look like a palace, it does not look like any- 
thing else." 

A visit to Madame Tussaud's, undeservedly slighted 
by hypercritics, affords unique historical instruction. 
Before the invention of electro-lighting or possibly even 
gas (for the exhibition is a century old) visitors fre- 
quently confounded wax figures with living spectators, 
an error barely possible to-day. Some representations, 
notably President Roosevelt's, are much exaggerated. 
Madame Tussaud herself in waxen effigy has stood sen- 
tinel for many years over the u Sleeping Beauty," whose 
pectoral oscillations suggest grave pulmonary difficul- 
ties. A figure-grouping which places Harry Thaw of 
New York in a private niche with Bismarck, and 
causes Martin Luther to extend his hands as if in bless- 
ing over Mary Queen of Scots can hardly be com- 
mended. In the Chamber of Horrors, said to be less 
thrilling than that in New York, a goodly company of 



London 23 

noted criminals, appropriately pale and cadaverous, 
huddle together on a platform. Beneath hang rusty 
instruments of crime and faded documentary evidence 
used at the trials. The valuable collection of relics at 
Madame Tussaud's, including the old treadmill, pil- 
lory, and the carriage used by Napoleon in his last 
Russian campaign, quite rivals the waxworks. 

At the Law Courts, then in session, we first beheld the 
real iron-gray legal wig, an admirable adornment not 
altogether unlike a corrugated wasp's nest. A young 
attorney called our attention to the amazing simplicity 
of modern practice. Even that grand old weapon the 
demurrer, if we correctly followed him, has become ob- 
solete. Surely at such ruthless change the ghost of 
William Tidd, Esq., of the Inner Temple, must haunt 
the place in lamentation. 

A permit courteously signed by Lord S enabled 

us to view the " Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Par- 
liament assembled," most aristocratic of all legisla- 
tive and judicial bodies. The Peers' chamber, espe- 
cially when irradiated by sunlight streaming through 
the fine stained windows, matches in soft beauty any 
cathedral nave. At least a hundred peers attended the 
debate, certainly no indication that this much-abused 
body has become effete. Lansdowne, the conserva- 
tive leader, eulogized Lord Cromer's Egyptian admin- 
istration, and recommended a national gift of fifty 
thousand pounds to His worthy Lordship; a gift sub- 
sequently conferred, although opposed by radicals in 
the Commons. The various peers, undivided except 
on state occasions by titulary rank, have no special 
seats, and usually take what positions they please on 
the comfortable red benches. Silk hats may be worn 



24 First Impressions of Europe 

during debate, except when a message from the King 
is read. Careful scrutiny detects no common type of 
British peer. Old and young, tall and short, dark and 
fair, they exhibit the diversity of any group of well- 
dressed men picked out at random. A few have the 
features supposedly inherited by a Beauchamp, Ver- 
non or de Vere; others, dukes among them, resemble 
plain farmers and tradesmen. All peers, dukes ex- 
cepted, are addressed merely as Lord , without 

the special titles. As we glanced over this august as- 
sembly, from the venerable peer who replied to Lord 
Lansdowne to His Grace of Sutherland, who was 
nearest (and wore red stockings), we thought by how 
frayed and slender a thread hung the imposing prestige 
of hereditary nobility, when undefended as of yore by 
martial fealty. New methods of land taxation, of which 
at times distant rumblings are heard, or abolition of 
primogeniture, would quickly cause partition of the 
vast estates, and transform palatial halls, not owned 
by Royalty, into free national museums of sculpture, 
antiquities and art. While Britain's titled Solons once 
regarded trade rather superciliously, "The principal 
reason," as stated in 1645, " why the judges do sit in 
the House of Peers upon woolsacks is to put them in 
mind of preserving the trade and manufacture of wool " 
— the export of which article was wholly prohibited in 
Queen Elizabeth's time. 

The Commons, where the debate turned on old age 
pensions, presented a less spectacular scene than that 
in the Lords. We finally passed out through West- 
minister Hall which, while impressive, is markedly 
wanting in ornamental detail and in monuments illus- 
trative of its wonderful history. 



London 25 

The Tate Gallery, Grosvenor Road, Vauxhall, mag- 
netizes most lovers of modern art. One room is wholly 
devoted to Turner, the undoubted '* King of Impres- 
sionists." Turner certainly had a more distinctive 
style than other artists, not excepting Corot; in fact his 
landscapes occasionally suggest Vesuvian craters in 
semi-eruption. Modern paintings, we reflect, when not 
mythical, scriptural, allegorical or idealistic, chiefly 
derive merit as faithful portrayals of nature; yet in 
visiting a fair country people not unfrequently pay 
slight attention to real scenery, and gloat rapturously 
over the imitation. As our party crossed a charming 
Alpine pass, in August, several co-travelers, worship- 
pers at the shrine of Millet, turned carelessly from the 
windows to play bridge whist. 

The Collegiate Church of St. Peter in Westminster, 
commonly called Westminster Abbey, contains, of all 
the buildings we visited abroad, by far the most of 
human interest. Opened for service in 1269, the world- 
famed Abbey has now acquired the characteristic 
" frosty " look, and bears within and without the stamp 
of profound antiquity. Within its chapels ragged 
time-corroded ornamentation assumes almost stalactitic 
forms. Soft color effects are, however, absent. So 
vast an aggregation of tablets, tombs, statuary and in- 
scriptions, and all so picturesquely grouped, arouses 
wonder. The oldest human remains in the Abbey, 
those of King Sebert, date from a. d. 616, and were of 
course originally interred elsewhere. Nearby lies Ed- 
ward the Confessor, of saintly memory, obiit 1065, 
whose tomb when pried open in 1685 contained "all 
his bones and much dust." The last royal burial, that 
of George II, took place in 1760. Of the modern no- 



26 First Impressions of Europe 

bility the Percy family alone, by ancient grant, have a 
present right to Abbey interment, irrespective of the 
Dean of Westminster's permission. All the Plantag- 
enets, save Richard of the lion's heart and weighty 
battle-axe, and one other, now lie, we believe, in a 
single tomb. Queen Elizabeth's unprepossessing fea- 
tures, taken from her death mask at the age of seventy- 
two surmount, yet scarcely adorn, her imposing sepul- 
chre. Although Stow says of her funeral, " there was 
such a general sighing, groaning and weeping as the 
like hath not beene seene or knowne in the memory of 
man," we should accept his statement cum grano salis, 
as political predilection strongly influenced these old 
writers. The noted loyalist Evelyn, on witnessing 
Cromwell's body borne with huge pomp and circum- 
stance to its very brief sepulture in the Abbey, remarked 
with supreme satisfaction, " It was the joyfullest fun- 
eral I ever saw, with none that cried except dogs." 
When the first Edward's dark tomb, nine feet long 
(the longest in the Abbey), was opened to ascertain if 
it really contained that sinewy spindle-legged autocrat, 
old " Longshanks " appeared intact and excellently 
mummified, his giant stature, historically six feet and 
seven inches, having shrunk to six feet two. Henry VII 
founded the superbly ornamented chapel wherein his 
tomb now rests, grandest of all the Abbey's sepulchral 
monuments. A removal of remains unworthily buried 
in Westminster Abbey would leave much vacant space. 
The huge tomb of George Villiers, and of his son, that 
" Man so various that he seemed to be 
Not one, but all mankind's epitome," 
would in such case vanish. Perhaps, however, it is as 
well to let " Steenie " rest in peace. 



London £7 

A new-world visitor, sauntering amid ancient crypts 
and mouldering monuments, begins to feel a personal 
ghostly intangibility, and is half inclined to search 
the graveyards for his own humble "hie jacet" Or- 
dinary English graveyard inscriptions, by the way, 
are little older than the early American, as the 
gentry received intra-church burial; and monuments 
of the "mute inglorious Miltons" have largely per- 
ished. 

The London houses of the nobleman and the opu- 
lent citizen contrast less strongly now than in quasi- 
feudal times, when palaces, like the Protector Somer- 
set's, lined the Thames, and civic London presented a 
tangled labyrinth of narrow lanes. The sombrous town 
house of His wealthy Grace of Devonshire attracts 
special attention, as also does Apsley House, jocosely 
called ■' No 1 London " by a contemporary, where once 
"the Iron Duke," less popular in politics than in the 
field, securely barred his windows against an excited 
mob. 

One George Johnson, a man of no celebrity, — many 
similar George Johnsons have thrived precariously in 
the London fog — acted as our guide through the cele- 
brated east side "slums" which we explored from 
Bishopsgate to Mile End. Whitechapel, while possi- 
bly more destitute and criminal than New York's east 
side, is yet less picturesque, as the higher New York 
tenements discharge more wretched polyglot humanity 
into a given space. We paid the penny admission to 
the Hebrew old-clothes market near infamous Petticoat 
Lane, where degraded humanity throngs the narrow 
spaces between pyramidal stacks of filthy rags, seem- 
ingly not worth a shilling a ton; and where careful 



28 First Impressions of Europe 

steering alone prevents the collection of unpleasant in- 
vertebrate souvenirs. 

Dirty Dick's ancient tavern in Bishopsgate has im- 
proved, outwardly at least, since the following verse 
appeared in " Household Words," — 

"Outside, the old plaster, all spatter and stain, 
Looked spotty in sunshine, and streaky in rain, 
The window-sills sprouted with mildewy grass, 
And the panes, being broken, were known to be glass." 

When the tavern was remodelled in 1870, a layer of 
cats, dogs, and rats, mummified by purely natural 
processes, was, inter alia, found in the sub-soil. Sub- 
sequent owners arranged these weird relics about the 
tavern's walls and rafters, and over wine casks; so 
many stray dogs and cats of the early Georgian era, 
with broken ribs protruding through their blackened 
skins, now peer at you through festoons of cobwebs. 
Luckily the wine is rare and old at Dirty Dick's. You 
need it when you get there. 

The Old Cheshire Cheese, in Wine Office Court, off 
Fleet Street, is yet more famous. One Sunday after- 
noon, having found its main entrance closed, we called 
down a side passage to inquire if the place were open. 
Back from the depths, in a shrill female voice, came 
the waspish reply "You know it isn't;" and, legally 
speaking, we felt that the issue was sufficiently complete 
without a replication. 

The natural desire, when first in England, to see 
places rather than people, subsides, we believe, in sub- 
sequent visits, until the underlying social element of 
our natures finally transcends mere place-longing. 
With us, the magnetism of the Tower, the Abbey, 
St. Paul's, a hundred other things before unseen, pre- 




•5b 






x 



Hampton Court 29 

vented extended search for scattered friends in Lon- 
don's many-fringing suburban belts. Yet Dr. P- 



called on us, our classical mentor in boyhood, whom 
we had not seen since we donned the toga virilis. The 
Doctor now acts as a trustee under the will of Cecil 
Rhodes, rents a charming Thames-side estate, thirty 
miles above the metropolis and is bathed, through his 
companioncy of St. Michael and St. George, in the sub- 
dued halo of Knighthood's outer zone. Then we dined 

most enjoyably at the pleasant home of Colonel M , 

of Grove Park on the Surrey side; which faces Shooter's 
Hill over which the old Dover stage once splashed 
through mud and mire, as described by Dickens in 
opening his " Tale of Two Cities." Pater and Sister at- 
tended a reception in Park Lane, and visited a fash- 
ionable ladies' club, where "the room in which we 
smoke" was pointed out, and brandies and soda were 
served. 

HAMPTON COURT 

On the delightful 'bus ride from London to Hamp- 
ton Court via Hammersmith Bridge and Twickenham, 
each succeeding village or town seems quainter than 
those already passed. The little cottages with sagging 
tiled roofs, almost smothered beneath vines, roses, 
honeysuckle and various flowering plants, merit de- 
scription solely by artists and poets. Field cultivation 
between the villages, unlike that of less populous coun- 
tries, is rather intensive than extensive. Such vege- 
tables and grass, darkly green, in places almost blue, 
and growing rankly in the moist climate, we had not 
previously seen. The road, hard as adamant, like most 



30 First Impressions of Europe 

excellent English roads, and free from dust, crossed 
and recrossed the Thames, here an inferior stream flow- 
ing, turbid with sediment, between banks of slippery 
mud. Passing Pope's Villa and the site of his Grotto 
we soon traversed Bushey Park, with its mile-long 
avenue of fine old chestnuts, a fit approach to the 
palace of the Great Cardinal. Wolsey on erecting huge 
Hampton Court trembled for his prestige if not for his 
head, as the jealous king wished his own castles to 
surpass those of his subjects; but, with consummate 
tact, the Cardinal smoothed the royal irritation, politely 
conveying Hampton Court to his master. The Palace, 
as extensively remodelled by King Henry, contains pic- 
ture galleries of much interest, and lofty rooms yet dec- 
orated with the original tapestries and allegorical fres- 
coes. It surrounds several quadrangles, and a broad 
stone-flagged arcade, which in turn circles about a 
fountain and a plot of richly verdant grass. The state 
beds of George II, and of William III and Mary his 
Queen, high enough to require theodolitic measurement, 
and festooned with many-colored silken draperies, all 
ghost-like with the cankering touch of time, aroused a 
pleasurable envy. Delightful gardens brilliant with 
flowers, where bits of shrubbery strangely trimmed as- 
sumed fantastic shapes, including forms of birds, spread 
from the Palace to the River Thames, here gay with 
pleasure craft. The famous grape-vine of Hampton 
Court, planted in 1768, and now a very labyrinth of 
twisting stems and tendrils, carefully preserved under 
glass, has produced over two thousand bunches of 
grapes in a single year. 

As we returned to London, ragged little boys scam- 
pered beside the 'bus extending hats for pennies. They 



Warwick 31 

subsist largely by this performance; and as visitors like 
to see how far they can run, their little faces lengthen- 
ing dejectedly with increasing doubt of reward, each 
penny given is fairly earned. 



WARWICK 

Shortly after William the Bastard, conquering son 
of Robert the Devil, had received a crown for his suc- 
cessful piratic raid at Hastings, Warwick became a 
borough of two hundred and sixty-one houses, " whereof 
one hundred and thirty were possessed by the King, 
one hundred and twelve by his barons, and the residue, 
being nineteen, by so many burgesses " — a truly aristo- 
cratic arrangement. 

Consideration of these and other facts added a 
piquant mental sauce to our dinner at the old fashioned 
Warwick Arms. Having dined we repaired at once to 
the castle, which dates in part from a. d. 916. Scott 
considered it the best-preserved feudal monument in 
England, a preservation largely due to the whig per- 
suasion of its owners during the civil wars, when 
Kenilworth suffered so badly. From a large room over- 
looking the Avon, Piers Gaveston, unfortunate favor- 
ite of Edward II, irregularly tried and sentenced by a 
group of fierce old barons, went forth to his execution 
on a neighboring hill. The state apartments contain 
no end of fine paintings and warlike relics, the latter 
largely Cromwellian. A portrait of Charles I by Van- 
dyck, one of four immense and heavily framed pic- 
tures in the dining hall, recalls the episode of Crom- 
well, described by Scott in " Woodstock." 



32 First Impressions of Europe 

The castle is approached between high walls, vividly 
green in their damp mossy garb and shadowed by 
foliage that completely arches the path. In its construc- 
tion some ledge in situ was utilized, and the natural 
inequalities duly smoothed with masonry. Rusty iron 
fangs, remnants of the old portcullis, still protrude 
above the arched postern. A vegetation almost trop- 
ical shrouds portions of the castle wall, while shrubs, 
vines and flowers half fill the moat. 

Behind the castle, the grounds, unsurpassed even 
amid England's wealth of proud estates in soft restful 
beauty, slope to the gentle Avon. Huge cedars of 
Lebanon (originally brought from Palestine, so runs 
the tale, by Warwick crusaders) with trunks embraced 
by creeping vines, and foliage that excelled any we had 
previously seen, spread their knarled branches hori- 
zontally and widely. A narrow path over the rich 
sward leads to a little foamy fall on the Avon, and 
passes beneath high battlements, profusely decorated 
earlier in the season with a wonderful display of roses. 
A glass conservatory rich in rare flowers and plants 
covers the mighty Warwick Vase of the fourth century 
b. c, skillfully fished by Sir William Hamilton from a 
lake near Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli. Altogether, na- 
ture and man, and, miserabile dictu, the unsatisfied 
creditors of man (for the present Warwick family 
possess little genius in finance) have mutually com- 
bined to preserve the attractions of a spot so famous. 

The Beauchamp Chapel, named from Warwick's 
first Norman earl, protects beneath its groined roof 
some wondrous sarcophagi, considered the finest in 
England, barring a few in Westminster Abbey. Richard 
Beauchamp, the fifteenth earl, reposes here; Leicester 



A Drive to Kenilworth 33 

also, exalted favorite of the Virgin Queen; and his 
brother Ambrose Dudley, in a tomb empanelled on all 
sides with colored coat armor. In this ancient chapel, 
where by the tread of centuries solid stone steps are 
worn entirely through, the visitor stands indeed con- 
fronted with spectres of a bygone age. 

In St. Mary's Church, adjoining the Beauchamp 
Chapel, the tomb of Fulk, Lord Greville, murdered by 
his valet in 1628, is surmounted by the helmet of the 
deceased. From elevated cells or "watch towers" the 
cunning priests, in the days of papal supremacy, de- 
tected any thefts of church ornaments by ostensible 
worshippers. In the cellar we stumbled against the 
ducking-stool for "nagging" housewives; a cumbrous 
yet ingenious antique, by which, according to Misson 
the victims were "plunged into the water as often as 
the sentence directed, in order to cool their immoderate 
heat." Apropos of the ducking-stool, Sir Richard 
Steele remarks, "There are perverse jades that fall 
to men's lots with whom it requires more than common 
proficiency in philosophy to be able to live." 



A DRIVE TO KENILWORTH 

The Warwick road passes Guy's Cliff Mill, where 
the big dilapidated wheel revolves to-day, as it has for 
centuries, freighted with slime and moss, splashing and 
churning the waters of the Avon. We find mention of 
this mill in Domesday Book. Guy's Cliff itself, a pa- 
latial mansion in a splendid park, indescribably pic- 
turesque as viewed up the lily-spangled Avon from the 
little rustic bridge near the mill, derives its name from 
C 



34 First Impressions of Europe 

the semi-mythical Guy of Warwick. Lord Percy, son 
of Northumberland's Earl, now enjoys the magnificent 
seat, a pile hardly less impressive than Warwick Castle. 
Beyond Guy's Cliff Wootton Court nestles snugly at 
the end of a long shadowy avenue. A new turn of the 
road discloses peasants' cottages, one an artist's inspi- 
ration, embraced by twining plants, spangled with 
flowers, and roofed with extremely thick masses of 
dusky yellow thatch. Finally, for novelties are here 
very plentiful, a swift shallow stream unenclosed by 
bridge or culvert flows directly across the adamantine 
way, which seems quite proof against aqueous erosion. 

Kenilworth Castle is deeply impressive; a mighty 
ruin in pinkish-red sandstone, decorated with vines and 
flowers, unshadowed by trees. Great red walls uprise, 
with broken Gothic windows, all surrounded by open, 
gently-sloping lawns. Time-ravaged and weather- 
moulded, strangely effective in coloring, it is now as 
much a work of nature as of man. A lack of ornamen- 
tal detail results from its long desertion. We observed 
no tablets, inscriptions or coats of arms on the totter- 
ing walls, although a few exist. Dungeons in the strict 
sense have, we believe, never been found in this castle; 
yet many rooms, now caves, are surely deep and dark 
enough for any doleful purpose. One great pit, per- 
haps twenty feet wide, and very deep, although in the 
heart of the ruin, is said to have been a cesspool. When 
such crude ideas of sanitation prevailed the fell microbe 
must have increased prodigiously, and proved at times 
an enemy within the bastions more deadly than any 
besieging host outside. 

At Kenilworth, unlike Warwick and Hampton Court, 
we might, once through the entrance gate, roam at will 



Stratford-on-Avon 35 

and recline unmolested on the grassy lawns. Would 
that time had permitted us to view its towers when 
bathed in silvery moonlight, and to brave the flitting 
ghosts of the ambitious Dudley, the famous John of 
Gaunt, and the noble Simon de Montfort. 



STRATFORD-ON-AVON 

The thorough harmony in the appearance and ar- 
rangement of streets and buildings in slumbering little 
Stratford appeals at once to the weary pilgrim. We 
had but one fault to find, — William Shakespeare was 
born there. If the "Immortal Bard" had arisen else- 
where, and his path across life's stage, and so many 
other stages, had but avoided this modern Mecca, how 
pleasure and profit might have combined as we inves- 
tigated the quaint old houses everywhere visible. As 
it was, everything had been explored, rummaged, writ- 
ten and rewritten of in poetry and prose, pictured and 
painted, until the veriest scintilla of novelty had be- 
come effectually erased. This difficulty, irksome to 
the inquiring, of finding anything not already known to 
all the world, while discernible in every beaten track of 
Europe, is particularly marked at fair Stratford on the 
Avon. 

The Shakespeare House, although noteworthy apart 
from association, is surpassed in picturesqueness by 
other antiquities, notably the ancient row which in- 
cluded Shakespeare's school. 

The Bard's direct line expired with the death of his 
granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall, in 1670, and the old 
homestead, now public property, was finally alienated 



36 First Impressions of Europe 

in 1806 by descendants of his sister Joan. It contains 
among numerous literary and other curiosities the desk 
of the poet's schoolmaster, wonderfully hacked and 
sliced by industrious pupils. Countless autographs em- 
bellish that plain low-studded room where Shakespeare 
was born, including Sir Walter Scott's, conspicuously 
scratched on a window pane. Ann Hathaway's cot- 
tage, over the fields in Shottery, where to-day the 
thatched roof, creeping vine and brilliant flower- 
garden attractively combine, may well have proved 
more seductive to " The Poet of All Time " than his own 
paternal roof. 

In a little graveyard, accidentally happened upon, 
the tombstones bore such strange inscriptions as " Plum 
Pudding," "Scotch Whiskey," etc. At first glance it 
seemed that excessive use of these delectable articles 
had caused human demises, but in reality pet animals 
were here taking their long rest. Prolix encomiums in 
Latin and Greek perpetuated sacred memories of the 
fiery stallion, the green-eyed kitten and the ever faith- 
ful and much lamented puppy. 



OXFORD 

Venerable Oxford was not, as we had supposed, a 
collection of broad shaded avenues, where flat-capped 
scholars leisurely sauntered along, construing ^Eschylus; 
but a large and lively city, pressing so closely up to 
many colleges as to mar their approaches. A maze of 
academic structures, mostly ancient, all classical, con- 
stitutes the University; of which strangers can rarely 
form true impressions, as such a body, unlike antiqui- 



Oxford 37 

ties which may be viewed in a general historic light, 
has its peculiar system, only understood by special 
study. 

We sought lodging at the Wolsey, where in 1525 the 
sumptuous " Cardinal of St. Cecilia beyond the Tiber " 
resided during the erection of Christ Church just over 
the way; but we speedily removed to the Wy cliff e 
Hotel, preferring tidy rooms, even if unhallowed by 
prelatic memories. In and about Oxford we enjoyed 

the guidance of Mr. M , Pater's former pupil at 

the University of New Brunswick, as well as the first 
Rhodes scholar in Baliol and a winner of the Glad- 
stone prize. 

Of the Academic buildings, all too briefly visited, the 
Magdalen "quad," with its carved griffins and age- 
worn stone, most strongly appealed to us, although that 
of Christ Church, where the stonework is lighter and 
more pleasing, yet of plainer design, is usually preferred. 

A brilliant ball is held annually in Christ Church 
"quad," when the English girls (if a resident Cana- 
dian's impartiality may be relied upon) waltz less grace- 
fully than their cousins of gay and wintry Montreal. 
Poor rugged Dr. Johnson once hastily retired from this 
"quad" to avoid the contemptuous glances levelled 
at the holes in his boots. In the dining hall of Christ 
Church, a notable apartment beautifully roofed with 
carved oak, historic association evidently vanquishes 
modern comfort, and the ancient backless benches must 
seriously hamper gastronomic joy. Here we find Hol- 
bein's original portrait of Henry VIII amid a wealth 
of famous pictures. A row of fifteen or more carved 
stone heads, an interesting achievement of Sir Chris- 
topher Wren in his younger days, arrests our attention 



38 First Impressions of Europe 

in approaching Magdalen; and we much admire also 
the strange little open-air pulpit from which John Wes- 
ley once preached, attained by entrance from the sec- 
ond story of that most typical old college. 

Addison's Walk, a fine two-mile promenade densely 
bordered with trees and shrubbery, skirts the level 
meadow on a raised embankment, and follows the 
little river Cherwell, and a branch channel that bends 
sinuously through the Magdalen grounds, with black 
swans gracefully floating upon its surface. A rich pad- 
dock, too, well stocked with sleek deer, adjoins Mag- 
dalen; a simply unrivalled combination of velvet lawn 
with deep leafy glade. 

We paddled three or four miles up the Cherwell, 
starting from Folly Bridge on the Thames, here called 
the Isis, and taking tea in the little garden grotto of a 
country tavern. While this little river may not com- 
pare with the boisterous foam-flecked salmon streams, 
which meander about New Brunswick's dark forests 
of fir, it is unquestionably more charming than Amer- 
ica's rural streams. The gentle current often over- 
arched by foliage flows amid stunted willows, ash, and 
masses of fine English may; while low walls evidently 
ancient and deep covered with moss and fern restrain 
undue erosion. Trees and grasses everywhere display 
enchanting combinations of the richest greens. The 
stream, in passing a mill, where the facilities for an 
easy "carry" would astonish the rude Canadian 
voyageur, descends a vertical fall of three or four feet. 
Bulrushes, thickly massed, extend entirely across the 
brink, the water bursting through them at the very edge 
of the incline. Above the mill tall meadow grass mar- 
gins a wider channel. Countless little boats, mostly 



Windsor and Eton 39 

punts, occasionally so crowded as wholly to choke the 
channel, and often poled or punted by girls, ply be- 
tween the fall and the Isis. Some have phonographic 
attachments that give forth the usual jocular and 
squeaky music. In the Cher's lower outlet, amorous 
couples often curiously entangled profit by the partial 
retirement conveniently afforded by many overhanging 
bushes. Honi soit qui trial y pense. 



WINDSOR AND ETON 

His sagacious Majesty, Edward VII, enjoys at Wind- 
sor a castle of grand and lofty situation, sufficiently ca- 
pacious to include nearly seven hundred halls, rooms 
and meandering passages. As with London's Tower, 
the effectiveness of unity in age and original design is 
lost by the interspersion of old and new structures, dat- 
ing downward, respectively, from the ancient Curfew 
Tower of the Conqueror's time. The Royal Mews 
adjoin, where at the time of our visit sixty-five fine 
horses and ponies neighed and pranced in their immac- 
ulate stalls. A high-walled Elizabethan terrace over- 
looks the " silver-streaming Thames," Eton and a wide 
sweep of fertile hill and dale; while a deep intermural 
ravine, laid out with garden walks and often red with 
roses, partially surrounds the great Keep or Round 
Tower. Windsor Castle experienced its most injurious 
"restoration" when the merry Charles established his 
frivolous court there, and appropriated the Devil's 
Tower, let us hope with more merriment than justice, 
to the numerous Maids of Honor. 

St. George's Chapel, where the Garter Knights are 



40 First Impressions of Europe 

installed, contains, aside from its indescribably beau- 
tiful nave, the dust of "bluff King Hal," first Defender 
of the Faith; the two well-cemented segments of 
Charles I and also the Princess Charlotte's most im- 
pressive and mournful monument, where the royal 
lady beneath a winding sheet is surrounded by her 
maids, all weeping, with their bowed heads closely 
mantled, as if in fact they had wept their mistress to 
death after the fashion of Undine. Notwithstanding 
the publicity of royal interments scepticism regarding 
the true disposal of the remains becomes periodically 
epidemic. Investigation at St. George's Chapel in 
1813, proved that the first Charles, like the first Edward, 
possessed, although minus one ear, a high post-mortem 
durability; while of His polygamous Majesty, King 
Henry VIII, a mere naked skeleton remained, its lank 
osseous chin yet strangely decorated with a tuft of 
beard. 

Some suits of mail in Windsor's old-armor collec- 
tions are valued at from £15,000 to £20,000 apiece, and 
derive, particularly the fine armor used by Charles I in 
his boyhood, much added interest from their historic 
wearers. The state bedstead, with its rich silken bedding 
used by many sovereigns and most recently by the visit- 
ing King and Queen of Norway, aroused our usual 
keen appreciation of such articles. Windsor's state 
apartments, wonders of gilded grandeur which well 
embody the popular idea of royalty, include, among 
endless great rooms, the Wellington Chamber, and far- 
famed St. George's Hall, where the ceiling is embossed 
with armorial bearings of all the Garter Knights. 

This most illustrious order of the Garter, so coveted 
alike by prince and peer, and properly symbolized by 



Windsor and Eton 41 

an article that so charmingly combines use with orna- 
ment, has a history yet partially shrouded by the mists 
of time. Opinions differ as to whether the original gar- 
ter was black or sky-blue. It may have been the King's 
garter. Historians now discredit the old legend of its 
discovery on the carpet by Edward III, to the mingled 
satisfaction and confusion of that fair Countess of 
Salisbury, whose valiant husband perished in tourna- 
ment at Windsor in 1358. 

In the Curfew Tower, the oldest part of Windsor, 
dungeons contained in the massive walls open into a 
central space. Torture instruments formerly embel- 
lished the cells. In the ceiling a bit of rusty pipe re- 
calls the dreadful water-torture, which usually caused 
insanity within two days, and death in three or four. 
All the prisoners, judging by the arrangement of the 
cells, possibly heard the screams and confessions of any 
one, perhaps even saw torture administered. One cell, 
completely dark, opens back of another, a hideous place 
indeed, where poor Queen Ann Boleyn was tempo- 
rarily imprisoned. An excavation in its wall, seven or 
eight feet deep, marks an industrious prisoner's at- 
tempt to escape. We sat in the stocks in this dungeon, 
and found them quite as comfortable as the Oxford 
benches. 

Eton's venerable buildings or " cloisters " founded by 
King Henry VI in 1440, while not extensive, have a 
time-ravaged and appropriately classical appearance. 
A person in seedy attire who astonished us by declin- 
ing a tip kindly pointed out the various magnalia, in- 
cluding the smooth athletic field, suggestive of forgot- 
ten passages in Gray's famous poem. In approaching 
Eton many proud little fellows passed us, wearing 



42 First Impressions of Europe 

black coats and tall silk hats. The very air seemed 
redolent of crystallized orthodoxy. 



ANTWERP 

Leaving London from Liverpool Street Station on 
July 31, at evening, we watched for miles the twinkling 
lights of seemingly endless suburbs, boarded the 
crowded Antwerp packet at Harwich, and passed a 
fairly comfortable night on a gently undulating sea. 
Continental Europe at first view disclosed lowlands, 
bordering the "lazy old Scheldt,'' the muddy inlet up 
which we steamed; richly green meadows, lined with 
rows of trees that branched much too high above 
ground to be graceful, a result of typical Dutch tree 
culture. Many steamers swept gracefully seaward, un- 
freighted, for a strike was in progress, and floating 
lightly, with propellers half above water, raising minia- 
ture Niagaras of spray. Antwerp Harbor, reached af- 
ter some hours' steaming, presented for miles busy nau- 
tical scenes more spectacular than those of Liverpool. 
On landing we joined by prearrangement a tourist party 
from Philadelphia, thirty in all, to make "the grand 
tour " under conductorship of the veteran guide, Charles 
Zerelli. 

Antwerp, which is attractive in many ways, might 
aptly be called "the White City" from the light color 
of its buildings, due either to paint or materials of con- 
struction. A well-dressed people thronged the streets, 
but little suggesting that European poverty, so much 
talked of. Perhaps the most noticeable difference be- 
tween Antwerp (and indeed all the cities of Continen- 



Brussels 43 

tal Europe that we visited) and English and American 
cities, consisted in the number of open air " palm gar- 
dens," usually crowded with respectable people of both 
sexes and all ages, even to young children; where nu- 
merous little tables dotted the sidewalks or interior 
hotel courts, and refreshments principally liquid were 
served at all hours. While however local options and 
temperance unions but slightly trouble Europe, gross 
intoxication seems rare. It was in Montreal after the 
return voyage that we first observed, at least in public 
places, poor wandering wayfarers obfuscated (pardon 
the phrase) by multifarious potations. 

Antwerp's splendid cathedral, with its "consecrated 
grove of stately columns," contains Rubens' much ad- 
mired masterpiece, " The Descent from the Cross," and 
the more impressive work of a pupil of Rubens, deco- 
rating the lofty dome one hundred and eighty feet above. 
Aside from general design much of the interior stone- 
work is plain, and without the carving and color effects, 
respectively, of St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. 
Indeed many great European cathedrals are now much 
stripped of ornament, the result probably of iconoclasm 
and spoliation in war. 



BRUSSELS 

The capital of crowded little Belgium impressed us 
at first glance as the most artistic city we had seen; 
and we retained this impression most tenaciously, even 
after the famous Parisian boulevards had ceased to be 
novelties. 

Having registered and dined at Hotel de Bordeaux, 



44 First Impressions of Europe 

we made a wide pedestrian tour. Brussels possesses 
an extraordinary feature in its Boulevard du Midi, 
where a shaded esplanade extending fully a mile and a 
half contains a grotesque collection of booths, exhibi- 
tions and shows of all sorts, with clowns, fortune-tellers, 
brass bands, dancing monkeys, saloons, merry-go- 
rounds, tinselled tambourine girls and what-not-else. 
Coney Island seemed to be visiting Belgium. We re- 
turned through narrow lanes inhabited by the poor, 
where Hebrews predominated, as indicated by nu- 
merous old-clothes markets; and the colored garments 
worn and the curious variety of wares exposed for sale 
greatly heightened artistic effects. At night the streets 
glowed with electric brilliancy, especially the Grand 
Boulevard. Indeed all these coast cities have splendid 
illumination. 

On our entering a theatre, a rather pretty girl strolling 
about the foyer in fanciful attire indicated, pantomimi- 
cally, a wish to accompany us towards the proscenium, 
a flattering offer declined however by suitable counter- 
pantomime. At this little theatre, where an English 
comedy company received enthusiastic applause, we 
were possibly the only person present to understand a 
word of the play. 

A round-about drive disclosed the new law courts, 
among the world's largest buildings, which overlook 
all Brussels; the legislative halls; the more ancient 
Hotel de Ville; and the celebrated Manikin Fountain, 
in a street nearby, a chubby little carved cupid, erected 
in 1645, which scatters its spray in too natural a manner 
to admit of criticism. In that most interesting spot of 
all Brussels, the little square between Hotel de Ville 
and the Prince's Palace, twenty-four of the old nobility, 



Brussels 45 

including Counts Egmont and Horn, fell victims to the 
wrath of Bloody Alva, who in those sad days personally 
resided in the Palace. Dark gray buildings touched 
with gilt surround this famous spot. Historically, how- 
ever, we naturally hold England in higher esteem than 
continental Europe, possibly excepting France; and 
we prefer places that recall the vicissitudes of Charles I 
to those memorializing Charles V, or His gory Grace 
of Alva. 

The Cathedral of St. Gudule, now above six cen- 
turies old, displays superb stained windows; also a pul- 
pit, wondrously carved by Verbniggen, which repre- 
sents the Tree of Knowledge and the first summary 
ejectment, that of Adam and his tempting consort from 
Eden's delicious by-ways. At the Royal Art Gallery 
the countless pictures of martyred saints and winged 
seraphim would appease the most sanctimonious appe- 
tite. Many are by Rubens. The four thousand or more 
widely scattered pictures marked "Rubens" are by 
the way considered mostly works of his pupils, for the 
renowned artist, notwithstanding longevity and a re- 
markable capacity for speedy work, could hardly have 
produced half so many. Such wholesale unacknowl- 
edged appropriation of merit largely due to others 
should detract appreciably from Rubens' fame. The 
small Weirtz gallery, sole repository, we believe, of that 
artist's works, is memorably unique. Immense pic- 
tures here surrounded us; one measured fifty feet by 
thirty. Peeping through a small aperture at one corner 
of the room the vicissitudes of a young woman picto- 
rially appear, who from "Folly" passes to "Hunger" 
and from "Hunger" to "Crime." Another peephole 
discloses a not too cheerful view of a man buried alive 



46 First Impressions of Europe 

and struggling to raise his coffin lid. "Napoleon in 
Hell " is excellent, both in theme and execution. Across 
the room was what appeared to be a stuffed black dog, 
but this also, on nearer view, resolved into a picture. 

But adieu to Brussels! Late one afternoon we re- 
passed Antwerp, crossed the broad Rhine estuaries; 
obtained fleeting glimpses of Rotterdam, where bright 
lights glistened attractively over numerous canals, and 
registered at nine p. m. at the Hotel du Passage in the 
Hague. 

Between Brussels and Antwerp the country rather 
resembles England. Artistic taste in field cultivation is 
occasionally so over-indulged that the extra labor must 
appreciably lessen profit. Some hay-stacks, even, are 
quasi-Gothic, with quite respectable pointed arches. 
Extensive tree nurseries often border the track south- 
west of Rotterdam, for timber growth is here as care- 
fully conserved as it is wantonly wasted in America. 
The Dutch lowland scenery, with luxuriant grass, lily- 
spotted ditches and more windmills than Don Quixote 
would care to tilt with, pleased some of our party 
greatly; others thought "Brave little Holland" a bit 
monotonous and moist, with oppressively heavy air. 
A fierce old Dutch guard disturbed our personal cog- 
itations en route by calling attention, a little vehemently, 
to the mysterious legend " Verboden te Rooken " — " It 
is forbidden to smoke." 



The Hague 47 

THE HAGUE 

Brilliant illuminations, music, thronging crowds, en- 
livened our first night at The Hague. It was no less an 
event than Queen Wilhelmina's birthday. Our hotel 
faced a lofty glass-roofed arcade, a Paradise for ladies, 
lined on each side with attractive shops; where at night, 
especially during the celebration, the many noises, hu- 
man, canine and feline, so reverberated as effectually 
to banish " tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." 

Generally speaking, The Hague is a large city, not 
very ancient in appearance, and less picturesque to our 
mind than Antwerp or Brussels. Its chief business 
streets, centrally grouped, are narrow; but new streets 
which are much wider extend on all sides, intersected 
by numerous canals. We observed no pleasure boats 
on these waterways; and such craft are indeed so un- 
common on most rivers and lakes we visited in northern 
Europe as to suggest that aquatic tendencies must, as 
regards the white race, be largely confined to Anglo- 
Saxons. The Hague is aptly mentioned in the old 
Pepysian diary as "a most sweet town, with bridges 
and a river in every street." 

Scheveningen, the " Dutch Brighton," attained from 
The Hague by a long street beauteous with shade trees 
and attractive mansions, presents no marked features 
aside from countless basket chairs on the sand, which, 
save for their greenish-yellow color, faintly resemble 
beehives or perhaps beaver houses. Groups of Dutch 
women stroll about in quaint native garb, and scatter 
like flocks of frightened wild geese at sight of the tour- 
ist's camera. 

The Hague's old Spanish Prison, fraught with dark 



48 First Impressions of Europe 

memories of the Inquisition, leaves most lasting im- 
pressions. One room, a museum of torture instruments, 
contains the "Hanging Gallows" (in which the con- 
demned hung head downwards), the "Limb Breaker" 
(a heavy mallet for smashing arms and legs), the grim 
rack, now red with rust, thumb screws, pincers for 
tearing out human tongues, and similar gentle contriv- 
ances. An executioner's stone block is worn two inches 
deep by use. From the apparent effects of single axe- 
blows, averaging two to sever a head, a lugubrious his- 
tory is recorded. Another block, used in the torture 
by dripping water, is also deeply worn, — but a slight 
indication of its actual use, as the drops fell constantly, 
even if no hapless victim sat chained beneath. In one 
cell prisoners overlooked the kitchen from a little round 
window and, while slowly starving to death, watched 
the aproned cook prepare the tasty viands they could 
never share. A dark cavernous cell, ornamented in 
the sixteenth century by an imprisoned priest, with de- 
signs drawn in his own blood, is yet more grewsome. 
It seems incredible that blood stains, though shaded 
from light, should so long retain a suggestion of original 
coloring; yet, by lamplight, they seem genuine, and 
where thickest may be scaled with a knife blade. Long 
might these massive walls have re-echoed screams of 
the unfortunate, had good " Father William " not risen 
to rend the Spanish yoke. 



Amsterdam 49 

AMSTERDAM 

Amsterdam (the Dam of the Amster) has been 
called the Northern or Vulgar Venice from its many 
canals of varying width yet never-varying foulness. 
Six hundred bridges span the sluggish waters, under 
which pass hundreds of canal boats, usually self-pro- 
pelled. All Amsterdam is picturesque, if the visitor 
can effectually sever the picturesque from the malo- 
dorous. Here at last our exact preconceived idea of a 
European city became realized ; narrow irregular streets 
teeming with activities, and long rows of buildings that 
from age and sinking foundations leaned over the side- 
walks. The city has deeper and more diversified color- 
ing than Brussels or Antwerp, with many very light 
window frames on dark buildings. The Queen's 
Palace, hard by our quarters at Hotel de Suisse, in Kal- 
verstraat, was built in the fifteenth century, and boasts 
one of Europe's grandest halls, with floors, walls, and 
ceiling of pure Italian marble. Our ladies, apparently 
unable to dissociate sight and smell, failed to appre- 
ciate Amsterdam, and pined for The Hague, where in- 
numerable souvenirs could be conveniently purchased 
within the grand arcade. 

Seventy-five thousand Jews, collected in one section 
of Amsterdam, form so grotesque an assemblage that, 
despite filth and foul odors, tourists continually drive 
in carriages down the long narrow lanes they inhabit. 
Hideous human deformity is here all too common. 
As our party passed several ladies nearly fainted, so 
closely did fat bloated women and ragged children sur- 
round the carriages, laughing and gesticulating in high 
appreciation of our visit. All sorts of indescribable 

D 



50 First Impressions of Europe 

objects fluttered from windows, for the purpose of 
drying or for sale. The scene quite out-Hebrewed Hes- 
ter Street in New York. 

Between Amsterdam and Cologne the land slowly 
rises, the scenery becomes more diversified and attrac- 
tive, and the farmhouses, in rural parts, scatter more 
widely. A little fort guards the Dutch border, point- 
ing its guns southward in charming defiance of any 
possible friction between Holland and Germany. By 
judiciously tipping the guard, we secured the use be- 
tween meals of the dining car, with ample window 
space and complete seclusion. 



COLOGNE 

Cologne's leading "lions" are of course the stupen- 
dous cathedral, scarcely yet finished after centuries of 
toil, and the church of St. Ursula. The front view of 
the Cathedral, where its wealth of carved fretwork 
soars so loftily, is the most impressive. Within, the 
many massive columns grand as they are prevent, as 
in Antwerp Cathedral, a sufficiently comprehensive 
view. Brussels Cathedral is, in this respect, more pleas- 
ing. We attempt no vain description of these great 
cathedrals, already depicted by masters of every art, 
— indeed the view of each succeeding edifice sadly 
bleaches the memory of those previously visited. 

St. Ursula is said to contain the bones of eleven thou- 
sand virgins martyred by Huns in the year 453. Such 
a massacre, if proved, of victims so charming, so young 
and so pure, would indelibly stain the history of Cologne. 
But in all probability the miscellaneous contents of 



Cologne 51 

some graveyard have been emptied into this remarkable 
church. The hollow walls of the nave are alleged to 
be completely bone-filled; and many bones are in fact 
visible through apertures purposely provided. Rows of 
skulls appear on shelves, the lower portions wrapped 
in needlework and embroidery often inlaid with gems. 
The adjoining chapel, however, displays the acme of 
osteological art. The lower part of its walls is variously 
carved and brightly gilded, while above extends a great 
interwoven basket-work of bones; limb bones, clavi- 
cles, ribs, bones enough to sink a small vessel, bones 
turned yellow and powdery with age, — all forming a 
fantastic mortuary mosaic. Professor Muller attrib- 
utes the virgin story to the insertion of a single letter in 
the name of St. Undecemilla, a virgin martyr, the record 
becoming " Undecem millia Virg. Mart." Many skulls 
show sword dents, arrow holes and other marks of 
strife which indicates that the virgins, if virgins they 
were, did not easily succumb. A stone chest in the 
main church, very old and weighty, is supposed to con- 
tain a young sister of Charlemagne. Aside from vir- 
gins' bones, St. Ursula presents interesting combina- 
tions of Norman and Gothic styles. 

Our visit to Cologne, colonized by Nero's mother 
with Roman veterans in a. d. 51, and the most ancient 
of all Rhine-fringing cities, was ridiculously brief; but a 
hasty walk disclosed various old structures which in- 
vited inquiry, and the famous bridge of boats across 
the river. 



52 First Impressions of Europe 

THE RHINE 

Frequent comparisons are drawn between the Rhine 
and other rivers, notably the Hudson and St. John of 
North America. When, however, we reached Mayence 
at evening, after the long steamer trip of one hundred 
and forty miles from Cologne, few of our party were 
unwilling to rank the Rhine above all competitors. The 
most beautiful and celebrated part, the Rhine Gorge, 
extends approximately from Bonn to Bingen, one hun- 
dred miles, the river carving a sinuous narrow valley 
through the mountains. 

A comparatively low country extends up to Bonn, 
where fine estates line the bank, and for miles above 
Cologne the spires of its great cathedral, the loftiest in 
the world, cast their lengthening shadows over the 
landscape. Ruined Drachenfels (Dragon's Rock), 
most impressive of all the castles because first seen, and 
immortalized by Byron's glowing, if inaccurate, pen, 
soon frowns from its lofty pinnacle, eight hundred and 
fifty-five feet above the river. Having ambitiously de- 
termined to describe all these castles, we duly noted a 
moss-clad ruin peeping from thick foliage; the impres- 
sive fortified crags, opposite Coblence, of Ehrenbreit- 
stein aptly called the Rhine's Gibraltar; the great castle 
of Stolzenfels, orange-yellow in color and finely pre- 
served, overlooking the village of Capellan; and equally 
great Markburg, three miles above, better preserved 
than Drachenfels, yet showing age in every stone. 
Markburg crests an almost unscalable promontory, hun- 
dreds of feet above the water. An enemy, pushed from 
its battlements would, in most places, roll to the very 
base of the cliffs. Above the twin castles of Sterren- 



The Rhine 53 

berg and Liebenstein, each as loftily situated as Mark- 
burg, the Rhine resembled a softened Saguenay, rugged 
hills uprising on both sides from the water's edge. 
Then castle followed castle, so thick and fast that we 
reluctantly closed our journal, despairing of effective 
description. Altogether, about a dozen additional cas- 
tles, mostly on the left bank, cast broken shadows down 
the great slopes. The Mouse Tower, a curious little 
stronghold, light brick-red in color, almost covered a 
small island, which split the rapid current. 

Rhine ruins are never monotonous, varying in size 
from single turrets to mighty feudal fortifications, and 
differ, respectively, in original construction and pres- 
ent state of decay. Some witnessed the heroic days of 
Charlemagne, that mightiest potentate of the Middle 
Ages. Commanding coignes of vantage were seized, on 
precipitous mountain spurs, where on one side flowed 
the glassy river, far below, while on the other deep and 
rugged ravines prevented access, save by tortuous path 
and causeway. Wild nature and legendary romance 
unite indeed in the Rhine Gorge. We wondered how 
so many robber barons subsisted in such a place, with 
garrisons large enough for effective defense. Feudal 
castles usually adjoined villages, where the knight de- 
fended the cottagers, and they, willingly or unwillingly, 
fed the Knight's retainers; but here many castles stood 
apparently remote from suitable sources of supply. Al- 
though the Rhine in the Middle Ages formed the prin- 
cipal commercial pathway for bearing northward the 
treasures of the Levant, and each passing barge was 
forced to pay toll to the avaricious lords of thirty-two 
castles, yet the cargoes usually wafted down the noble 
stream would hardly seem to have been suitable for the 



54 First Impressions of Europe 

feeding and armament of mail-clad knights and their 
lusty retainers. The terminal fortresses of the gorge, 
if their owners chose to make toll equivalent to confis- 
cation, apparently held the intermediate ones largely 
at mercy. In 1842 the Rhenish toll-levy was still 
claimed, as of right, by the Duke of Nassau, and by 
him alone. The famous Hanseatic League, so largely 
instrumental in curbing these feudal exactions, was 
formed at Mayence, where, over night, we pleasantly 
dreamed that laurel-crowned Charlemagne, and not 
Zerelli, personally conducted our tour. 

Aside from castles, the most unique Rhine feature is 
the prodigious number of little stone terraces, used in 
grape cultivation, and ranged one above another, form- 
ing irregular striw along the steep slopes. Wherever 
forests are cleared, and the soil is not denuded, appear 
the terrace and vine. Opposite Bingen rises a great 
bare hill, treeless and shrubless, where this peculiar 
cultivation extends to the very summit; and halfway 
up, of stone of like color with the terraces, stands a 
fine old ruin, fairly saturated with poetic inspiration. 
Viewed in the crimson sunset glow, the whole land- 
scape creates the dreamy impression that you must be 
on Mars, or some other strange planet. At Bingen, 
so delightfully situated, the Rhine-gorge ends, and the 
river suddenly expands, becoming bounded by lowlands, 
with distant hills, yet retaining much beauty. Below 
Coblence black volcanic basalts, rifted, fissured and 
markedly columnar, largely compose the Rhine cliffs, 
a formation conducive to picturesqueness and fertility, 
and probably contemporaneous with the Giant's Cause- 
way and the Hudson Palisades. 

The St. John or Hudson, in exceptional parts, might 



The Rhine 55 

rival the Rhine if restored to its purely natural state, 
but, as it is, probably no other river so perfectly com- 
bines enchanting scenery with human interest. More- 
over, the Rhine, in its castellated portion, is a true 
river, while the St. John below Gagetown, and the Hud- 
son below Troy, are, strictly speaking, estuaries. A 
river may, like the Saguenay, be impressive to the verge 
of awe, yet withal monotonous; but on the Rhine no 
two views correspond. Sharp and frequent bends 
always bring out the serrated contours in fine relief 
and afford many contrasting views of the same castle. 
The towns and villages big and little, which nestle 
snugly under the cliffs or cover picturesque intervales, 
usually contain one or more old stone watch-towers of 
Norman aspect, and ecclesiastical edifices, some yet in 
use, others exhibiting tottering walls and broken 
Gothic windows. Some Rhine slopes are wholly 
wooded. Of the castles, a few are surrounded by true 
forest, others by clustering trees and shrubs, yet others 
by mere cliffs quite naked or supporting thin growths 
of lichen and moss. The river channel has approxi- 
mately even width from Bonn to Bingen, enclosing 
comparatively few islands, and these small, while the 
current, everywhere swift, breaks into small foamy 
waves at one point, near Rheinfels. No inflowing tor- 
rents or waterfalls, at least in the summer season, give 
forth their noisy rumblings. In places, artificially 
paved banks restrain the waters, especially below Bonn, 
while an incredible number of little jetties, each a foot 
or so in height, extend far into the stream, to direct 
currents and scour the river bottom. Indeed few ob- 
jects in Europe, from broad rivers to steep Alpine 
slopes, have not been man-moulded in some degree. 



56 First Impressions of Europe 

The glacier-fed Rhine, high all summer long, dis- 
charges into the lowlands, so great is the Alpine precip- 
itation, a volume of yellowish-green water computed to 
rival Niagara's downpour. Many neatly painted 
steamers, often adorned with broad green stripes, ply 
on its surface, especially below Bonn, and, by disturb- 
ing the narrow channel with their waves and momen- 
tum, impair, from the canoeists' standpoint, an other- 
wise ideal stream. 



HEIDELBERG 

A traveler, if limited to one castle, might well choose 
Heidelberg, considered the grandest ruin in Germany, 
if not in northern Europe. Boldly situated where the 
valleys of the Rhine and Neckar converge, three hun- 
dred and thirty feet above the water, massive, vast and 
splendid, its giddy ramparts and weathered towers di- 
rectly overlook the old university town, slumbering so 
far beneath. Many calamities (including a great fire 
caused by lightning in 1764), and frequent restorations 
have made of it a comparatively modern ruin, half cas- 
tle, half palace, and little of it now antedates the fif- 
teenth century. The stonework is pink, less reddish 
than that of Kenilworth. Rows of mural niches fac- 
ing the inner court contain fine statuary, carved in 
yellow sandstone. In one of the lofty turrets a young 
lady of our party became lost — indeed she had a pro- 
pensity to get lost whenever possible — and narrowly 
escaped a night in the instructive society of rats, bats 
and owls. The French captured Heidelberg Castle in 
1689, and blew out with powder a huge section of the 



Heidelberg 57 

principal round tower, which fell in one mighty frag- 
ment that yet stands, thirty or forty feet high, caressed 
by twining plants, and leaning ominously over the an- 
cieni moat. 

Little stairways in a lofty cellar conduct visitors over 
the great wine tun, last filled in 1769; a truly huge re- 
ceptacle, capable of holding forty-nine thousand gal- 
lons, whence the wine, pumped by machinery into 
rooms above, undoubtedly provoked many a mid- 
night brawl. Even a Dutchman would pause in drain- 
ing such a mighty tank, — or the president of a Heidel- 
berg students' club, elected, as is sometimes the case, 
solely for his bibacious attainments. 

In the castle grounds ivy spreads over the earth in 
extensive beds a foot or more thick, and ascends many 
trees as well, — a most astonishing display. Flowers, 
however, would seem to grow less profusely here than 
in England. Warwick alone, of all the castles we 
visited, can claim a prettier environment, a fairer dream- 
land of shrubbery and trees, than Heidelberg; while in 
territorial outlook this great German fortress vies with 
Windsor. Behind the castle and within the outer walls 
winds a deep gulch, possibly wholly artificial, spanned 
by massive bridges, where sunlight glistens through 
dense foliage upon ivy and moist mosses beneath. In 
the centre of a little pond reclines a giant carved in 
stone, overgrown with ivy and flowers, much weathered, 
and seemingly of high antiquity. 

Heidelberg Castle becomes suffused with a delicate 
pink glow, when viewed at sunset from the upper 
bridge over the gently flowing Neckar, which we reach 
by a short walk through quaint old streets. It is grand, 
yet we prefer a ruin which, without restorative touch, 



58 First Impressions of Europe 

crowns some remote precipitous peak, and discloses 
the toes of the robber baron himself peeping above the 
soil. Some Rhine ruins are partially of this nature. 

Picture postals of the famous Heidelberg rapier 
duels, ghastly and highly colored, are for sale in the 
city shops; but these encounters are, in fact, more san- 
guineous than deadly, as a wire mask largely protects 
the fighter's face. 



LUCERNE 

A fair agricultural country spreads in undulations 
between Heidelberg and Bale, with completely vine- 
covered hills, and several isolated mediaeval ruins. At 
Bale we bid farewell to the Rhine, there also beautiful 
and swift, and of a lighter green than the Niagara. 
Between Bale and Lucerne, sixty miles, the scenery 
becomes increasingly attractive, with mingled wood- 
lands, valleys and villages, but no remarkable features. 
The Aar is crossed, old Rhine's chief tributary, its 
curling emerald current fed with melted Jungfrau 
snows. When near Lucerne the first touch of real Al- 
pine romance exalted us. Much Swiss scenery, apart 
from the mountainous portions, is marred by the num- 
ber of scattered trees, not gracefully clustered, but 
"peppered" everywhere at random over the fields. 

Lucerne and its surroundings are indeed charming. 
The almost torrential lake outlet bisects the town, a 
rushing bluish-green stream, clear as crystal, and of 
astonishing volume for its limited drainage area. 
Among other structures, two wooden footbridges with 
peaked and shingled roofs, the Capellbriicke and 



Lucerne 59 

Spreuerbriicke, some centuries old, cross this impet- 
uous outlet. Within the bridges we find ancient col- 
ored pictures, peaked to fit the roofs, one of them rep- 
resenting "The dance of death." A pointed octagon 
tower containing a shrine and lighted candles adorns 
the lower bridge. Visitors wonder why these bridges 
zig-zag instead of following straight lines, and how 
they were ever built at all in such powerful rapids. In 
the more ancient part of Lucerne some strange old 
buildings, outwardly frescoed with quaint designs and 
figures, surround a little cobbled square. 

It seemed perfunctory to visit Thorwaldsen's cele- 
brated Lion, already so familiar from photographs, yet, 
as with the Albert Memorial in London, the live color- 
ing of the reality vastly bettered expectations. Sorry 
would we have been to miss that colossal work of art. 
The Lion is carved in pale gray rock, in fact, almost 
white, with red-lettered inscriptions, and is circled at 
the sides and above with a fringe of foliage, while in 
front nestles a little pond, rich with grasses, ferns and 
water-lilies. 

A fine view of Lucerne, especially when electro- 
lighted, is obtained from a hotel west of the Reuss, 
reached by inclined railway. Far and near the scat- 
tered lights from other hotels, perched high on distant 
mountains, sparkle like stars. 



60 First Impressions of Europe 

THE RIGI AND MT. PILATUS 

More tourists have stood on the Rigi-Kulm than on 
any other Swiss peak. The mountain's situation, so 
near Lucerne, has always made access easy, while the 
first of the many inclined railways that now form so 
marked a Swiss feature, was that which, crossing many 
a leafy gulch and rock-broken torrent, twisted grad- 
ually upward to its treeless summit. The Rigi views, 
ever delightful and diversified, plainly excel those from 
Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. A gentleman 
from Banff, too, in the Canadian Province of Alberta, 
reluctantly declared his Rigi preference, as even world- 
famous Banff discloses no such circled lakes, all so in- 
tensely blue. Southward uprises a tremendous Alpine 
range, the Todi chain, snow-clad, and of broken con- 
tour; northerly and westerly extends undulating culti- 
vated land, dotted with hamlets, stretching away to the 
distant valley of the Rhine. Ascending Rigi, fine ever- 
green groves delight the eye, steep sloping meadows, 
besprinkled with flowers, and a few rugged ravines. 
Near the summit the railway follows a narrow ridge, 
affording almost vertical views to a great depth on both 
sides. A landscape of strong and varied coloring 
spreads beneath, with red-roofed cottages and lakes 
blue as indigo, a blue not wholly sky-reflected, as with 
eastern American lakes, but much deeper. Yet Rigi 
scenery is not wild; its lawn-like verdure excepting on 
the vertical north side extends to the top, with few rock 
exposures, debris or taluses. Our Appalachian Club 
would rejoice to find at Rigi a railway of imperishable 
build, instead of the wooden trestles and rotten ties 
that creak so mournfully beneath the passing trains on 



The Rigi and Mt. Pilatus 61 

our Mt. Washington. The neat grass plots, too, on 
Rigi-Kulm, are preferable to those heaps of rusty tin 
cans and miscellaneous refuse that decorate New 
Hampshire's rocky dome. A stout Ohio judge, who 
was with us, appreciatively remarked, " I not only take 
off my hat, but I lay down." 

By late authorities, which give for many Swiss moun- 
tains heights that exceed those accepted as correct a 
half century ago, Rigi-Kulm stands 4,200 feet above 
Lucerne and 5,906 feet above the sea. Surely the little 
Swiss nation deserves high praise in thus elevating the 
Alps in the very face of the mighty avalanche and in- 
cessant fluvial erosion! 

Lake Lucerne is the most beautiful in Switzerland, 
possibly in the world. Each far-extending arm or bay 
unfolds fresh views, all diverse and deliciously pic- 
turesque. Most charming of all is the eastern end, 
the profoundly deep Lake of Uri, narrowly enclosed in 
an amphitheatre of steep and lofty slopes, which spread 
upward to mingle snowy crowns with gleaming gla- 
ciers. The view into this lacustrine pit, from half-way 
up Rigi, excelled any obtained above. 

Mount Pilatus, which may be also ascended by rail 
to the summit, 6,998 feet above the sea, is wholly un- 
like Rigi. The slope is much steeper. Wild chasms 
yawn beneath, and rough precipices, over which tall 
spruces and firs extend. At Rigi we virtually climbed 
an inclined lawn and garden, in broad cars, with easy 
motion; at Pilatus the little puffing engine pushed us 
up with unpleasant vibration, on a much narrower 
track, continuously and unpleasantly steep; while the 
four or five dark and dripping tunnels collected the 
usual nauseous mixture of steam and coal smoke. Lit- 



62 First Impressions of Europe 

tie cliff caves and grass, dotted at times with small flow- 
ers, yellow, red and blue, add scenic variety to Pilatus. 
The finest scenery for the first half of the ascent is on 
the right hand, thenceforward all the great gulfs and 
unscalable rock-faces border the left or west side of 
the track. 

The sky was tumultuous, now partially bright and 
clear, now with clouds sweeping up the shaggy moun- 
tain, obscuring all below. Once, wherever we looked 
from the Kulm, drifting clouds hid all below, the sun 
meanwhile shining brightly overhead. A calm pre- 
vailed, strangely enough at such a height, without suffi- 
cient wind to stir a grass blade. The railway station 
and hotel surmount a narrow ridge, overlooking north- 
wardly a most appalling precipice. Some hundred 
feet below, by the way we came, reposes a delightful 
little vale, where rich grass, on which cattle feed, sur- 
rounds an extensive snow bank. Views from Pilatus 
lack the Rigi color-brilliance, but no Rigi view equals, 
and we doubt if, given the most favorable atmospheric 
conditions, any earthly view can excel that over Lake 
Lucerne from half-way down Pilatus, where wild 
forest ravines, sheer precipices and splintered peaks 
compose the foreground, and every grand Alpine com- 
bination looms up beyond. 

Pilatus, named, by one account, from an improbable 
legend about Pontius Pilate, its top usually garlanded 
with cloud wreaths, even when sunshine bathes much 
loftier peaks, frowns threateningly over the city of Lu- 
cerne. The railway has proved unprofitable, for not- 
withstanding the grandeur and sublimity, the nervous 
person, giddy with peering into the profound gulfs and 
startled at the train's uncanny habit of slipping back- 



Interlaken and the Grindelwald 63 

ward when halts are made for water, usually rests con- 
tent with one experience. 



INTERLAKEN AND THE GRINDELWALD 

The views between Lucerne and Interlaken, espe- 
cially at Brunig Pass, an elevation of 3,379 feet, and 
about Lake Brienz, are memorable, — the best that we 
obtained from trains during our travels; yet withal 
varied and pretty rather than wild or impressive. Some 
superb waterfalls, of great height although compara- 
tively small volume, freshened the dark cliffs and cone- 
topped evergreens with their drifting silvery sprays. 
The engine changed several times, as often happens in 
Switzerland, from the ordinary track to that called 
" rack and pinion." As we steamed down Lake Brienz, 
eight hundred feet of water lay beneath us; indeed Al- 
pine waters, generally, rival in depth America's huge 
inland seas. A vast amphitheatre of great hills, sug- 
gesting a natural coliseum, surrounds the lake; Lu- 
cerne-like irregularities and diversities are absent and 
one grand view discloses everything. At the upper end, 
Giessbach Fall, a beautiful descent of 1,100 feet in 
seven pitches, floats its misty veils above the pyramidal 
fir-tops. Both Brienz and its turbulent outlet, which, 
eager to add its quota to the majestic Rhine, pours 
through Interlaken, with great haste and astonishing 
volume, are milkish green from the peculiar white 
glacial silt called " rock flour." 

Interlaken is the most tourist favored, and deservedly 
so, of all Swiss resorts. Our restful Hotel Belle Site 
faced the celebrated mountain gap, and the glistening 



64 First Impressions of Europe 

snows of the Jungfrau, a favorite view with photogra- 
phers. A visitor once waited here three weeks to 
obtain a cloudless view up the Gap. We, more fortune- 
favored, found each dark rock-face and scintillant 
snow-field clearly printing itself against an azure sky. 
In one section of Interlaken ancient unpainted wooden 
houses, irregularly grouped in wild disregard of street 
lines, with leaning walls, sagging roofs and broken 
balconies, still serve to shelter the humble poor. These 
rickety malodorous dwellings, like better Swiss cot- 
tages in the mountains, often have the color of burned 
sienna, with deep stains, while occasional masses of 
bright flowers about the balconies contrast oddly with 
the general decay. A fine old church tower rises near 
by, dating from 1285. 

By rail and coach we ascended the Grindelwald to 
the Upper Glacier, 4,300 feet above the sea, where an 
artificial grotto, which extends fifty feet into the clear 
blue ice, remains practically unchanged from year to 
year; an indication of feebleness, or even retrogression, 
in the general glacial movement. August temperatures 
of well above 80° Fahrenheit, although sufficient to 
cause the usual torrent, creamy white with rock flour, 
to burst forth from the glacier's base, have little effect 
upon its great solid mass. The glacier is most attractive 
a fourth of the way up, where rough bluish pinnacles 
form the surface. It possesses as a whole much of 
interest, yet little of grandeur. 

The great gulch between Grindelwald and Inter- 
laken's alluvial plain, where the winding course out- 
lines each beetling precipice in bold relief, presents 
impressive scenery; yet the valley, notwithstanding 
the huge cliffs and snows above is, like Rigi, rather 



Interlaken and the Grindelwald 65 

beautiful than wild, cultivation existing wherever pos- 
sible, and green fields mingling with the lower snow 
patches. The stream within, augmented in its devious 
windings by feeders from the Lower Glacier and numer- 
ous gullies, and thoroughly opaque with white sedi- 
ment, becomes a most tumultuous roaring torrent. 

Aside from the vale of Grindelwald, we rather 
skirted than actually entered the Alps. In Swiss 
travel generally, it is preferable to avoid cities, and 
seek hotels far up ravines, whence high-altitude ex- 
cursions involve less sudden change than that experi- 
enced in reaching perpetual snows within a few hours 
of leaving sun-baked valleys. 

Alpine exhilaration seems at times to cause peculiar 
cerebral instability. As we penetrated the romantic 
Grindelwald, about all of the party decided to ascend 
Jungfrau before returning, a decision ignominiously 
revoked at dinner by fully one- third of them. After 
dinner the Jungfrau volunteers dwindled down to the 
Judge and Richard Roe, and they, in turn, wavered 
until the last available train puffed off. Later, descend- 
ing the valley, the Judge proposed to Roe to leave 
the Interlaken train, ascend Scheinige Platte, and join 
the party, a day late, at Geneva. Roe promptly as- 
sented to the confusion of His Honor, who merely 
wished to create a better impression, after the Jungfrau 
episode; in truth he cordially disliked high altitudes, 
even Rigi-Kulm. The more sedative air of a yet lower 
level caused Mr. Roe to suggest that Scheinige Platte 
attractions were probably exaggerated; whereupon the 
Judge, feeling safe ground, and shrewdly guessing 
that we had passed the proper station, ostensibly pre- 
pared to start for the mountain at once. Finally Zerelli, 
E 



66 First Impressions of Europe 

the long suffering guide, wearied with all their ques- 
tions about Scheinige Platte, answered by loud snoring, 
an excellent method of determining their Alpine am- 
bitions and perplexities* 



THE CITY AND LAKE OF GENEVA 

The scenery, on our journey by rail from Interlaken 
via Berne to Lausanne, and thence by steamer to Ge- 
neva, aside from lakes, resembled that of Germany; 
pretty, but without special features, until we ap- 
proached Lausanne. Then, indeed, a grand pano- 
ramic view was revealed; down great slopes as com- 
pletely vine-clad as the Rhine's, over little slumbering 
hamlets far beneath, and southward across the waters, 
wide and so intensely blue, to the distant peaks of the 
Pennine Alps. Geneva, or Leman, which in area 
slightly exceeds Lake Constance, is Europe's largest 
lake, west of Russia, and its circumnavigation by 
steamer requires a full day. Contemporaneous differ- 
ences of level, called seiches, are observed on its surface, 
due to variances in atmospheric pressure. Near the 
western end Mt. Blanc, the silvered dome of Europe, 
cuts sharply into the skyline, while in the foreground 
attractive villages border the water-front with walled 
gardens. 

Geneva itself proved disappointing, probably be- 
cause extremely hot weather prevailed, and the potent 
stimulus of Alpine environment had been too suddenly 
withdrawn from us. Its principal feature is the outlet 
of the mighty Rhone, whose wondrously cerulean 



The City and Lake of Geneva 67 

waters after encompassing a small island devoted to 
memories of Rousseau, soon break into powerful rap- 
ids. A line of great roofed laundry barges, equipped 
with every abluent appliance, hangs by chains in these 
rushing waters. Myriads of wash-boards project over 
the gurgling eddies; and wrinkled harridans, while 
busily plying their useful calling, chuckle in senile 
mirth when beer is carried out to them over gang- 
planks. 

Although contrasting rivers frequently unite, the 
famous "meeting of the waters" just below Geneva, 
where the Rhone and Arve converge, is probably un- 
paralleled; the Rhone water so blue — blue even as 
small quantities appear in a porcelain tub — the smaller 
Arve so unwholesomely silted with ochreish "Alpine 
flour," finely ground detritus washed from the tre- 
mendous Mer de Glace. The Rhone is Europe's 
swiftest river, one of the world's swiftest, and keeps 
up its mad pace from source to mouth. 

Threading Geneva's narrower lanes and courts we 
thought how, after all, the oldest towns we had visited, 
in their very existence, extended but half-way down 
the dim historical perspective. Geographical discovery 
in early times actually developed more slowly, north of 
Italy, than it has over darkest Africa in our day. Polyb- 
ius and Ptolemy were puzzled about the true sources 
of the Rhone and Rhine ; and in the time of Herodotus 
the whole Alpine range was unknown to the Greeks. 
European travel, also, has lost, merely within two 
centuries, its early flavor of romance. The courtly 
Evelyn hunted wolves near Paris, narrowly escaped 
from fierce Swiss brigands, robbed by footpads, re- 
mained all night roped to a tree, and in crossing the 



68 First Impressions of Europe 

English channel had, as he says, "a pleasant passage, 
although chased for some hours by a pyrate." 



THE JOURNEY TO PARIS 

A beautiful cool day, following an oppressive week, 
enhanced the enjoyment of our long journey from 
Geneva to Paris. We rested at hill-perched Lausanne 
where in June, 1787, Gibbon, inspired by the incom- 
parable prospect, finished his monumental history of 
Rome. Charming rose beds here border the inclined 
railway from the station to the lake. Between Leman's 
broad expanse and the Swiss frontier there lies a charm- 
ing country, with ever-varying semi-mountainous views 
and deep ravines, quite Canadian-like in their dark 
mantles of spruce and fir. Beyond Pontparlier the flat 
valley of the Saone, embracing the old Province of 
Burgundy, is less interesting. Indeed from the frontier 
to Paris we found the usual scarceness of detached 
cottages between the villages, and little to reflect upon 
save Dijon's venerable towers. 

At the Pontparlier customhouse trouble awaited our 
most corpulent and merry co-traveler, a teacher from 
Baltimore. He was feeling particularly joyous, when 
the French officials, noting no ostensible cause for 
merriment, concluded that he must be "laughing at 
France," arrested him, and dragged him off to a 
building nearby for examination and search. The 
party became greatly excited. Several Irish members 
rolled up their coat sleeves, demanding immediate trial 
by combat. Gendarmes boarded the train. Mean- 
while the prisoner and his guards held lively debate, 



The Journey to Paris 



69 




70 First Impressions of Europe 

neither side at all comprehending the other. Zerelli 
appeared, pale in his wholesome dread of the consti- 
tuted authorities, and stated that the prisoner desired 
to apologize, a statement the prisoner vehemently 
denied. Zerelli, however, won his point by lifting the 
merry man's hat from his head and humbly bowing 
himself, all of which he declared to be done by proxy. 
The commissionnaire finally dismissed our friend, now 
much fatigued by the ordeal, with the peculiar parting 
injunction " Do not laugh again in France! " 

Later we changed to a much overcrowded train, and 
waited for dinner, anxiously if not ravenously, until 
after nine o'clock. Informed at last that all the delec- 
table French messes were prepared, we traversed four 
or five carriages only to find the "diner" closed, and 
to stand another half hour in the adjoining vestibule. 
Our first impressions of France found expression in 
malediction ill-suppressed. 



PARIS 

The world's gay metropolis of fashion and art, pat- 
ronized even yet by the holy St. Genevieve who died 
there fourteen centuries ago, quite suggests, when 
viewed comprehensively, an enlarged Brussels. The 
expectant stranger as his eye first roams over Paris 
may experience, as with London, some contraction of 
cherished preconceptions. The colorings seem less 
vivid, the street perspectives less impressive, the famous 
buildings a little less magnificent than, from the hear- 
say of lecture, book and painting, he has been led to 
expect If he is obliged to depart, however, as we were, 



Paris 71 

after a brief week's visit, the painful sense of small 
accomplishment provokes exasperation. 

Parts of Paris, to strangers, present geographical 
puzzles, as many curving boulevards closely alike in 
appearance intersect at low angles, while in London, 
by contrast, narrow clustered lanes more often separate 
the great streets. In both cities many leading streets 
with their continuations are polynomial, which height- 
ens the confusion. In Paris a few steps take you from 
the Boulevard des Capucines with three names, to the 
Boulevard Haussman, having, with its prolongations, 
no less than seven. So, in London, Nottinghill, Bays- 
water Road, Oxford and New Oxford Streets, Holborn, 
Newgate Street, Cheapside, Cornhill and Leadenhall, 
all virtually form one lengthy thoroughfare that twists 
through the metropolis like a distended boa-constrictor. 
Each city has its muddy much-walled river. The 
Seine, without perceptible current at low water, is more 
canal-like than the Thames. In both streams fisher- 
men patiently dangle lines all day, and hook more snags 
and tin cans than edible aqueous vertebrates. 

A single week in Paris merely enables the visitor to 
flit sparrow-like from place to place, collecting hosts 
of misty impressions. The magnificent gothic Cathe- 
dral of Notre Dame, with its immense stained windows, 
a product of the twelfth century, lingers in the memory, 
and so does the gloomy conciergerie, where Marie 
Antoinette paused in her mournful descent from palace 
to guillotine. At Notre Dame the priesthood's custom- 
ary osteological taste is indicated by the cervical verte- 
brae of a bishop, killed in the Revolution. One stands 
in awe before Napoleon's massive unlettered tomb at 
the Church of the Invalides, where light streams 



72 First Impressions of Europe 

through blue glass windows upon walls and floor of 
white marble. This veneration of the great Corsican 
markedly contrasts with the rude disposal, after the 
English Restoration, of iron-souled Cromwell's re- 
mains, yet Cromwell's life presents some decided Napo- 
leonic analogies. 

After driving through a squalid section, where swarms 
of dirty little boys fought like tom-cats for pennies 
thrown to them, we happened upon the famous ceme- 
tery of Pere Lachaise. Over the vaults, little stone 
houses, five to eight feet high, inwardly decorated with 
artificial flowers, are in places closely ranged, as if 
bordering miniature streets, and leave little intervening 
room for trees or shrubbery. Lovers of romance con- 
stantly throw fresh flowers upon the large tomb of 
Abelard and Eloise, although this couple's pathetic 
story closed nearly eight centuries ago. Abelard's 
remains, originally deposited at Cluny, and five times 
carried from one spot to another, were finally interred 
at Pere Lachaise in 1817. 

Wherever we went in the Parisian parks and boule- 
vards, and especially in the Champs-Elysees, the leaves 
had turned a rusty brown; a surprising fact, as else- 
where the foliage, rural and urban, was fresh and green, 
even at a later time. Nightly and daily we rambled 
about, starting from Hotel St. Petersburg, Rue Cau- 
martin, a central situation; and varied our walks from 
a leisurely afternoon stroll in the shady Jardin des 
Tuileries, where soft music filled the air, to a midnight 
excursion down the Rue de La Fayette (a locality not 
too safe), or to a survey of picture shops in the Palais 
Royal's enticing arcades. Oftentimes we rested, for 
a glass of wine, where little flower-decked tables dotted 



Paris 73 

broad sidewalks. After-effects of our slight overdose 
of Rubens, taken in the Netherlands, rather than 
normal lack of appreciation, caused a regretful neglect 
of the great art collections. As with most good things 
of life, satiety follows a too steady diet of "artocathe- 
dralism." 

Ville d'Avray, an odd little village of many walls, 
and to us the most interesting spot in Europe, slumbers 
peacefully beside the road to Versailles and quite near 
Paris. A century ago King Louis Philippe, that mon- 
arch of many vicissitudes, bestowed, probably during 
his exile at the court of Ferdinand of Naples, the titular 
emoluments of this quaint hamlet upon an ancestral 
connection of ours. We failed, through sheer inability 
to make the natives understand us, to find its ruined 
chateau and grassy pond so often sketched by Corot. 
Everywhere about Paris, indeed, we experienced greater 
linguistic difficulties than had confronted us in former 
years among humble Canadian habitants. Well says 
Bacon, "He that travelleth into a country before he 
hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school 
and not to travel." 

A distinguishing feature of Paris is the Bohemian 
life; not a typically French life, for it is absent in other 
cities of France, but simply Parisian. It seems as if 
mere accident had started Paris this way, and that, 
once so started, the volatile Frenchman had striven 
to make the city justify its peculiar reputation. Cer- 
tainly in some sections affairs seem largely conducted, 
from midnight to dawn, under the distinguished pat- 
ronage of the Devil. Our guide through this Bohemia, 

M. de M , attributed his youthful appearance, — 

he was forty-two years of age and seemed twenty-five 



74 First Impressions of Europe 

— to his habit of retiring, except on special occasions, at 
half past one every night, while his brother Bohemians 
preferred to witness the advent of rosy dawn. De 

M , whose cards were inscribed "the gentleman 

guide," performed his duties largely con amove, as he 
derived a snug income from a certain unique invention 
(the result of two years' patient industry) by which, on 
dropping a few centimes into a box, various young 
ladies in attenuated attire, who appeared pictorially 
on the sides of the box, were made to arise, as if by 
magic, and dance and kick distractedly. 

A moderate aspect of erratic Parisian life unfolds at 
the Boule Cafe, Moulin Rouge and Dead Rat, gay re- 
sorts about the Boulevard de Clichy, where the legal 
limitations of less favored cities are but slightly ex- 
ceeded. Small parties of wealthy " Americanos " or 
English, gentlemen apparently, with closely veiled la- 
dies of their own station, frequently take central po- 
sitions amid the festivities, and sit motionless, like stat- 
uary, taking no active part, although keenly alert to all 
things said and done. The Parisian, confident in the 
rectitude of his peculiar life, regards these "animated 
busts" as hypocrites, and purposely stirs his compan- 
ions to excesses, whereat the statuary is aroused to 
feeble signs of life, — for is not this the wickedness they 
have come so far to see ? 

A venerable bearded wizard, at his desk in the 
Moulin Rouge, professionally investigates French titles 
of nobility, and possesses a mine of genealogical data. 
Although no charlatan, as might be supposed, he would, 
we fear, if sufficiently paid, "cook the evidence," in 
favor of young Monsieur, who contemplates bride- 
hunting in New York or Chicago. A wizard's pedigree 



Versailles 75 

bureau is oddly located in such a vortex of bacchana- 
lian revelry. 



VERSAILLES 

The all-day drive from Paris to Versailles by way of 
the extensive Bois de Boulogne and historic Pare de 
St. Cloud, returning by Sevres, of pottery fame, and 
other straggling Parisian suburbs, cannot fail to at- 
tract all visitors not hopelessly blase. For miles of the 
way, the Eiffel Tower, man's best effort to reach 
Heaven from a low level, is seen to thrust skyward, and 
high above all meaner objects, its delicate steel tracery, 
painted bright orange yellow. As on the way to Hamp- 
ton Court, ragged children, here girls as well as boys, 
run beside the 'bus for centimes, the boys turning fre- 
quent hand springs. 

Versailles is rich in palaces. The Fourteenth and 
mightiest Louis built the Grand Trianon, a low palace 
of mixed pink and yellow material, for his favorite 
Madame de Maintenon, whom he nicknamed Madame 
Stability, rather for her mental than her corporal at- 
tractions. An adjoining coach-house holds the sedan 
chair of Marie Antoinette; highly carved state car- 
riages of Napoleon and other monarchs, more bril- 
liantly gilt-coated, if possible, than those of London's 
worshipful Lord Mayor; and a half dozen ancient 
royal sleighs of odd construction. These sleighs have 
posterior mid-air projections, where once sat footmen 
warming their feet in lined sockets attached to the main 
bodies of the sleighs. 

The principal palace, surely a fifth of a mile long, 



76 First Impressions of Europe 

might well have inspired Le Grand Monarque, aside 
from his absorption of political functions, to exclaim 
" Uetat? C'est moi" as he gazed from its rear windows 
over the magnificent sloping park, where lawns, gar- 
dens, forests, shrubberies and artificial lakes form a 
tout ensemble outri vailing Wolsey's performance at 
Hampton Court. Small paths, branching from the 
broad central avenue, lead to cosy grottoes in forest 
glades, where groups of statuary encircle little ponds. 
One grotto is as striking as that at the Lion of Lucerne. 
Trees, by careful training, rear umbrageous gothic 
arches over the paths, while in the bordering glades, 
darkly shadowed by thick foliage, ivy twists up every 
trunk. All this is behind the palace. The broad cob- 
blestone courtyard in front is wholly unrelieved by 
shrubberies or grass. 

Within the palace great picture galleries exemplify 
all qualities of brushwork, from famous masterpieces 
to deplorable daubs. Our guide, when questioned about 
a crude battle scene, sub-infernally splashed with yel- 
low and crimson, remarked apologetically, "The ex- 
hibition is not intended to be wholly artistic, but to 
represent also the military glory of France. " It is sin- 
ful to have art galleries here at all, unless it be possible 
without blocking side windows, adding new dome- 
shaped roofs with skylights, and otherwise transform- 
ing a place so fraught with historical memories. The 
chapel and long ballroom are the most imposing apart- 
ments at Versailles. Antiquities are few, aside from 
the gorgeous gilded bedsteads of Louis XIV and of the 
Empress Josephine, as well as Napoleon's short and 
massive couch, which vaguely suggests the great man 
himself, and has its due share of gilt and yellow silk. 



St. Albans 77 

Josephine's couch, a miniature Eiffel Tower in height, 
supports a wealth of weird ghost-like draperies. As 
we stood where Marie Antoinette, hearing that the 
populace lacked bread, had recommended cake as an 
agreeable substitute, an uncontrollable ebullition of 
democratic fervor possessed our worthy judicial friend 
from Ohio. 

The great White Palace — Versailles, while light pink 
in front, is almost white in the rear — looms up most 
grandly from positions well down in the park, its vast 
extent requiring a long perspective. 



ST. ALBANS 

Having decided, after our return to England via 
Boulogne and Folkestone, to inspect the antiquities in 
and about St. Albans, we were most fortunate, in 
alighting from the train at that reposeful town, to meet 
the verger of a north-country cathedral, well versed, 
as most vergers are not, in ecclesiastical architecture, 
and bent upon investigations similar to ours. 

The famous Abbey, a cathedral since 1877, can boast 
of a Norman Tower, seemingly its newest and best 
preserved part although in fact the oldest, composed 
of Roman material from the neighboring ruins of Ver- 
ulamium. Native clays, when moulded by Roman 
hands, invariably attained this unequalled perfection of 
solidity and durability. The body of the church, 
originally built with the cemented flint stones and red 
brick of the Romans, and restored, in part, through 
Lord Grimthorpe's industrious ingenuity, with wholly 
different material, now presents an odd appearance. 



78 First Impressions of Europe 

St. Michael's church, where Bacon, the versatile 
sage of St. Albans, was laid to rest, dates originally 
from far off Saxon times, and exhibits the typical struc- 
tural variations of many epochs. Experts can deter- 
mine the age of these churches from the architecture 
with extraordinary accuracy. Our verger, requesting 
his brother of St. Michael's to withhold information 
until his own opinion was first expressed, proceeded to 
indicate correctly the age of each succeeding restora- 
tive touch in the venerable windows, walls and arch- 
ways amid which we stood. A "squint" or circular 
aperture in the outer wall of St. Michael's permitted 
lepers, without spreading their dread malady, to re- 
ceive the necessary spiritual edification. 

Verulam or Verulamium, for several centuries Rome's 
capitol of her British Province, and probably the first 
Roman foundation in England, occupied the site of 
the chief fortress of the ancient Britons, finally captured 
by assaults of Caesar's legions, after a prolonged de- 
fence by the intrepid Cassivelaunus. We viewed here 
a profoundly historic spot. Except in a few places, 
only the contour of the ground now marks the city's 
site. In an open field stands the largest remnant of 
the old wall, perhaps fifty feet long by fifteen in height, 
built with rough masses of cemented flint stones, 
interstratified with occasional layers of thin red brick 
tiles. Beneath this flinty rampart we leisurely stretched 
ourselves out on the grass, while the verger told us how 
he had once assisted in opening St. Cuthbert's long- 
closed tomb, and described similar weird cryptic ad- 
ventures. Before us lay a placid vale, once an artificial 
lake rippled by prows of ornamented Roman galleys. 
No sound, other than the lowing of cattle, or mellow 



Torquay and Vicinity 79 

chimes from distant belfries, drifted over those smooth 
pastures, where formerly fierce gladiators, the human 
tigers of a merciless age, struggled, with net and trident, 
to the amphitheatre's hoarse applause. Verulamium 
closely resembled Pompeii in area and general plan. 
It was used as a quarry for two centuries, and from this 
vandalism many old buildings of St. Albans derive 
their materials. 

An attractive shaded lane, partly bounded by a deep 
fossa or ditch, supposedly pre-Roman, leads from the 
present town past the eastern end of Verulamium. 
The Round House, duly placarded as "The oldest 
inhabited house in England," and now used as a tavern, 
faces this lane. Its foundation, more ancient than the 
oaken superstructure, is said to date from a. d. 795. 

Having dined with the verger at the Bell Tavern and 
caught the last London train, we closed a day's outing 
of which the memory should long be green. As our 
" conducted " tour fortunately terminated at Paris, we 
were enjoying once more the esprit de corps of a "free 
lance," uncircumscribed by vexatious dates and sched- 
ules. 



TORQUAY AND VICINITY 

Between London and Torquay a more pleasing land- 
scape unfolds than that of the Midlands, with wider 
views, more graceful tree groupings, and broader fields, 
less patchworked with hedges — for hedges even, while 
far superior to America's low stone walls and ragged 
wooden fences, may become monotonous when, in 
number and arrangement, they suggest a boundless 



80 First Impressions of Europe 

checker-board. Below Exeter some of the villages seem 
fairly wedged into crannies of the bright red sea-cliffs. 

Torquay, while par excellence the most fashionable 
and attractive of English shore resorts, is a modern 
place, with few antiquities, barring a remnant of old 
Tor Abbey. Yet it hardly looks youthful, as high and 
massive walls border the more elevated streets and 
lanes — formidable lithic entrenchments, said to prevent 
trespassing, yet so situated in places along the beach 
as to seem of meagre value for use or ornament, unless 
to withstand spray-splash during storms. One gentle- 
man's estate bounds the highway by a vertical escarp- 
ment some fifteen feet high, yet the inevitable wall 
above is as lofty as ever, and exhibits the usual embel- 
lishment of broken bottles. The wall-building pro- 
pensity seems here carried to an extreme. Pleasant 
gardened villas and singularly exuberant vegetation 
completely cover Torquay's steep slopes, while the busi- 
ness section extends compactly along the underlying 
harbor front. The coast scenery thereabouts is soothing 
and delightful, especially at Anstey Cove, a rugged nook, 
closed in by precipitous sea-sculptured cliffs, pink and 
gray in coloring. 

Our one break in travel's constant routine was the 
week we spent at Le Chalet, the residence of our friends 
in Torquay, a pretty terraced estate, which commands 
extensive and picturesque views of all Tor Bay, where 
beautiful yachts, one with bright green sails, ride at 
anchor, and vicious little torpedo-boats dart swiftly 
hither and thither like black scorpions. As it was re- 
gatta week, pyrotechnic displays of wonderful bril- 
liancy appeared from the lawn at night. Great crowds 
follow the regattas, which completely alter the aspect 



Torquay and Vicinity 81 

of these coast towns, and are held successively in many 
places. Booths, merry-go-rounds, side-shows worthy 
of a Barnum, all hastily erected, display flags and col- 
ored bunting, while buildings and squares gayly sparkle 
with electric lights and Chinese lanterns. When not 
stirred up by regattas Devon people pass the idle hour 
much as we do. Croquet seems in vogue; also bridge- 
whist, and that seductive provoker of gossip and in- 
digestion, the five o'clock tea. 

Small steamers ascend the famous estuary of the 
Dart, twelve miles in length, to where that little river 
disembogues, just below the ancient village of Totnes. 
The estuary affords the best scenery of its kind in Eng- 
land; and a few enthusiasts call it, rather ambitiously, 
the " English Rhine." In places fine forest covers the 
slopes, extending so closely to the water that the wide 
spreading foliage is gently tide-kissed. The regatta 
was in progress at Dartmouth, and after our steamer 
had returned down the estuary, we partook of a late 
dinner, with roast fowl and champagne, at the Royal 
Castle Inn, watching the while a gorgeous display of 
parti-colored lights in the square outside. Navy people 
much patronize this famous and typical old tavern, 
which, in its antique construction, so vividly recalled 
the Maypole of Dickens that we looked about instinc- 
tively for Mr. Willet, honest Gabriel Varden and Bar- 
naby's loquacious raven. 

A feature of European scenery, aside from decay of 
Roman and feudal foundations, is its stability. In 
America charming cascades, like the Shawanegan, are 
constantly being harnessed to unsightly pulp-mills, 
and fine woodlands become dismal flame-scorched 
plains, where mantles of purple fire-weed surround 

F 



82 First Impressions of Europe 

the gaunt black skeletons of noble trees. By contrast 
the early European guide-books, omitting mention of 
the railways and hotels, will serve fairly well for twenti- 
eth century use. We find a minute description of the 
Dart, a half century old, which aptly fits that snug 
brackish inlet as it appears to-day. 

Kent's Cavern near Torquay has helped very largely 
to determine the age of prehistoric man. As we suc- 
cessively passed on our journey from old taverns to 
feudal castles, from Saxon abbeys to Roman walls, the 
limit of available retrospect seemed reached, but here 
at Kent's Cavern lived the men who chipped flint arrow- 
heads, as they crouched beside their smouldering fires, 
and who had watched the hairy mammoth wallowing 
in the Thames, while lions and hyenas wrangled for 
prey on the present site of St. Paul's. The cavern ex- 
tends irregularly inward about a hundred yards, with 
branch passages, ever varying in width and height and 
gradually sloping downward. Alternate layers of 
stalactite and marl expose innumerable bones of cave 
mammals, with occasional human remains and imple- 
ments. Stalactites and stalagmites of all shapes and 
sizes illustrate how curiously Dame Nature combines 
chemistry with mechanics in her dark subterranean 
laboratories. 

The cave, even if well lighted, could hardly be beau- 
tiful, as the lime deposits are mostly stained a dull 
reddish brown. Bones of cave bears and hyenas look 
strangely in the solid mass overhead, instead of beneath 
your feet, a condition due to artificial excavation. 
Human inscriptions, bearing date of 1571, and of the 
seventeenth century, and cased with transparent stalag- 
mite, in places a twentieth of an inch thick, afford a 



Chester 83 

rough yet valuable key to the time required to form the 
greater deposits, many feet in depth, where bones of 
man and mammoth repose side by side. 



CHESTER 

Chester, anciently Deva, which overlooks the broad- 
ening estuary of the Dee, a once greater commercial 
channel than the Mersey, claims to be the most per- 
fectly walled of British cities. Little Conway, over 
the Welsh border, disdainfully, and we think justly, 
scouts Chester's mural precedence. The Chester walls, 
which vary from twelve to forty feet in height, are sur- 
prisingly narrow, usually not above five feet broad, 
and have Roman subfoundations. In places small 
trees and shrubs press closely up on one side, while on 
the other lie open fields. The walls often wind pictur- 
esquely through back yards and small gardens, and 
again become one-sided, flagged of the same width as 
elsewhere, but at present so graded up as to serve merely 
ior retaining the highway. In the little Phoenix or 
Newton Tower, at an angle of the wall, ill-fated Charles 
1 descried his army defeated on Rowton Moor. Numer- 
o is Roman relics, including props of a hypocaust, 
ornament an enclosure adjoining the Water Tower. 
H ^re we met a gentleman who fully shared our admira- 
ti( n of the surrounding novelties, and we wondered if 
he came from Tasmania or Borneo, until he remarked 
th? t his home was in Liverpool, just fifteen miles away. 
Having descended the wall to visit the ancient Cathe- 
dral, and its dreamy old cloisters once traversed by 
the sandalled friar, various familiar names were seen 



84 First Impressions of Europe 

on sculptured stone and monumental brass. How 
often, in England, well-known names and places appear 
by mere accident! In such manner Shooter's Hill first 
confronted us; and in the London anatomical museum, 
the day before leaving for Chester, we paused to inspect 
a peculiar skull, which proved to be that of Eugene 
Aram. 

The famous Rows are not overhead oaken projec- 
tions, as might naturally be expected, but stone-paved 
terraces, some six or seven feet above the street level, 
having shops on one or both sides of the walk, and just 
high enough to admit of other small shops beneath. 
This unique street-terrace formation may be partly 
due to peculiar topographical conditions brought about 
by the Romans, who, it is said, carved down the two 
principal streets through solid rock to a depth of ten 
or twelve feet. 

Stanley Palace, dating from 1591, and the most 
interesting of Chester's wooden antiquities, overlooks 
a little court leading from the principal street. It was 
the town house of the unfortunate Earl of Derby, and 
there within a small chamber, a mere mural recess, he 
lay concealed for many days prior to his execution in 
1657. A trap-door and a dark subterranean passage, 
now somewhat obstructed, lead to Chester Castle, a 
half-mile distant. These small town "palaces" of the 
old noblesse, pleasure resorts in peaceful times, often 
contrast strongly with their formidable castles in the 
country. Derby Palace narrowly escaped transporta- 
tion to Chicago during the World's Fair, but local pride 
fortunately vanquished commercial vandalism. 

Quaint old gabled houses — God's Providence House, 
Bishop Lloyds, the Yacht Inn, where Swift stayed, a 



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Eaton Hall 85 

score of others, Tudor and pre-Tudor — greet the Ches- 
ter wanderer at every turn. Venerable St. John's 
Church, of pleasing interior from its warm red sand- 
stone, closely adjoins the fine ruin of a yet more an- 
cient church, to-day a mere ivy-wreathed lithic skeleton, 
in part of unknown age. The soft sandstone on many 
old Chester buildings yields rather easily to "the cor- 
roding tooth of time." Entering a paper shop under 
Bridge Street Row, and descending steps in the rear, 
we stood beside a great stone tank, perhaps ten feet 
deep by five feet wide, undoubtedly Roman, and possi- 
bly once a plunge bath. An aperture in the adjoining 
wall disclosed a little vista of clustered Roman columns, 
short and sturdy, supporting concrete ; the whole, when 
not too closely examined, resembling a natural cave, 
braced by thick stalactites. The Romans probably 
lighted fires here to heat the air above, a partial sub- 
stitute for the modern Turkish bath. 



EATON HALL 

In England, local and family history are inseparable. 
As, in early days, the Percy and the Beauchamp in- 
delibly impressed their names on many a stricken field 
and ivied tower, so the Grosvenors, although of less 
ancient renown, have long dominated the vicinage of 
Chester. Eaton Hall, the splendid mansion of that 
family's ducal chief, extensively remodelled some years 
ago at a cost of nearly two million pounds, adorns the 
ancestral park of the same name; and overlooks at the 
rear a garden red with flowers that gently slopes to the 
Dee. A visitor, having conjured up imaginative pic- 



86 First Impressions of Europe 

tures of now ruined castles in the brave days when 
valiant knights and their faithful squires, returning 
wearied from the tourney or the chase, reclined on 
rush-covered floors to harken to the minstrel's lay and 
the spluttering of damp logs in the great open chim- 
neys, may observe to-day at Eaton Hall what furnishing 
and adornment a great modern peer finds essential to 
his proud position. In the entrance hall massive coats 
of arms, in heavy gilt frames, overhang the fireplaces. 
We pause before a carved representation of the old 
lawsuit between Sir Robert Grosvenor and the Lord 
Scroope, regarding alleged armorial infringements; 
most celebrated, probably, of all such controversies, 
where a jury of forty stout knights and barons, rigid 
on the score of their old noblesse, unravelled hundreds 
of ill-written depositions, including that of the poet 
Chaucer. When gentility hinged solely on armorial 
inheritance, any theft of quarterings became serious. 
Many years after the Grosvenor-Scroope controversy, 
Queen Elizabeth, "having founde divers and sundry 
persones presumptuouslie and contemptuouslie to 
usurpe the Dignities of Gentlemen," caused the plebeian 
offenders to be "at theire perills reprooved and con- 
trowled." 

The splendid family portraits range downward from 
the earlier Grosvenors to the beautiful duchess of the 
present day. Two great companion pictures, a superbly 
ferocious combat of bear and hounds from the brush 
of our old friend Rubens, and an equally doubtful 
strife of hounds and lion by Snyders, were painted in 
competition. What a pity the great masters did not 
turn their attention more often from Madonnas and de- 
parted saints! The ducal library, grandest of all the 



Eaton Hall 87 

apartments, and used on occasion for balls, contains 
twelve thousand rarely-bound volumes. Any wealthy 
city might be proud of a chapel such as that at Eaton 
Hall — a very epitome of architectural taste and ele- 
gance. 

The bold equestrian statue of Hugh Lupus before 
the Hall's chief entrance, and the inscription "Hugh 
Lupus Grosvenor" on the late Duke's tomb in Chester, 
suggest a present claim of descent from Gilbertus 
Le Grosvenor, reputed nephew to the wolfish Hugh — 
a pedigree severely criticised of late.* Possibly His 
Grace of Westminster may have to seek consolation 
in his family motto " Semper virtus non stemma." Earl 
Hugh Lupus, so gluttonous and magnificently prodigal, 
is described by Ordericus, a contemporary, as "given 
much to his belly, whereby in time he grew so fat that 
he could scarce crawle." 

In the late afternoon, with a London gentleman and 
his niece, co-explorers of the Grosvenor domain, we 
returned to Chester by steamer down the Dee; surely 
a nice little river, of scenery as pleasing as, while more 
contracted than, that of the Dart's estuary. Near 
Chester a few fine estates with flowery gardens slope 
quite abruptly to the water. Houses are more scarce 
above; and low and level fields alternate with woodland 
patches and more elevated ground. Above Dee Bridge, 
erected by submissive Chester in 1280 under peremp- 
tory mandate from the stern uncompromising Edward, 
the river pitches by a small fall into a famous salmon 
pool, more murky than Canada's green and amber 
pools, yet said to contain, in season, many fish. 
* See "The Ancestor," No. 1, p. 166. 



88 First Impressions of Europe 

CONWAY AND CARNARVON 

Few monuments of mediaeval war compare with 
Conway and Carnarvon castles, erected about con- 
temporaneously and from plans by the same architect, 
in the relentless strife of u Longshanks " versus Llewel- 
lyn. At Conway Castle, now as ruinous as Kenilworth, 
ivy, grass and flowering plants crown the crumbling 
gray stone turrets and battlements. The Great Hall — 
the principal room in any castle — was here a hundred 
and thirty feet long; its roof supported by stone arches, 
of which only one remains intact. Countless birds, 
nesting in these ruins, and amid the ivy, twitter noisily 
at evening, when undisturbed by prowling tourists. 
We quietly smoked, and watched them, where the 
lowering sun cast an orange glow through breaches in 
the walls down into the very chamber where the first 
Edward, with his first queen, Eleanor of Castile, spent 
Christmas Eve, six centuries ago. 

Carnarvon Castle is larger than Conway, darker in 
color, every way more grim and prison-like, a maze of 
dark stairways and passages, in threading which we 
often lost our way. It is also better preserved, although 
the Great Hall has been carted off long since for its 
material. Constant repairs have obviated a general 
restoration. Lofty chambered walls and yet loftier 
turrets surround three acres of inner court, carpeted 
with verdant grass. Carnarvon, grander though less 
picturesque than Conway, exhibits the octagonal tower, 
Conway having that of the smooth rounded type. 
Each of these castles, unlike Warwick, Kenilworth, 
Windsor and many others, dates wholly from a single 
period, and was constructed for a single purpose, 



Conway and Carnarvon 89 

ultimately accomplished after fierce unremitting con- 
flict and dreadful loss of life. 

In all these ruined castles the great towers, which 
once contained the larger and better rooms, excepting 
the banquet halls, oddly enough now form but hollow 
cylinders of impressive depth, pitted with sockets that 
held floor timbers long since decayed. We find open 
fireplaces, yet darkly smoke- stained, in wholly inacces- 
sible situations, often fifty feet or more above the ground 
level. 

Conway town, so cosy and compact, pleased us im- 
mensely, as it occupies a charming site, with exceptional 
scenic variety, bare rugged hills, undulating farm land, 
a patch of forest, verdant meadows, the tidal estuary 
and the open sea beyond. At the Castle Hotel, so an- 
cient, homelike and old-fashioned, no noisy city traffic 
disturbs the jaded traveler's repose. Conway seems 
literally squeezed small by its mighty surrounding 
walls; beside which those of Chester look diminutive 
in all save length. The masonry, much decayed, 
seems hardly safe in places. A narrow grassy path, 
only four or five feet wide, but well-railed, follows the 
top, and overlooks chimney pots and small trees, 
often at a rather dizzy height. Stray towers uprise, 
one a lofty commanding view-point. Within these 
grim walls the fierce Llewellyn once got "Long- 
shanks" cooped up. Starvation nearly forced the de- 
termined old fellow into surrender. 

Near the north gate a little two-storied house in- 
scribed "the smallest house in England," a statement 
readily believed, is wedged tightly between higher 
buildings, and cannot exceed five feet in width by eight 
or nine in depth. Conway has also the Plas Mawyr, 



90 First Impressions of Europe 

to which many legends in default of historic facts are 
attached — a Tudor mansion of 1580, centrally situated, 
and surpassing anything even in Chester as an archi- 
tectural antique. The peasantry about Conway, ac- 
cording to our landlady, adhere tenaciously to Welsh 
racial characteristics, which include a morbid love of 
spectacular funerals. 

Wales pleased us, scenically, above central or south- 
ern England. Between Chester and Carnarvon the 
railway usually skirts the sea or low flats dotted with 
stray stone houses; while southward many villages in 
endless chain, nestle beneath the highlands. Over 
Conway Mountain (808 feet) and other hills, mostly 
bare of trees, adjoining it southwesterly, extend carpets 
of small-bladed grass, scarlet heather in extensive beds, 
and yellow gorse, forming that gold and purple land- 
scape so often painted. Remains of a formidable 
fortress supposedly early British crown Conway Moun- 
tain, and form a quadrangle fifty feet in length, bordered 
by piles of small loose stones, that resemble fallen walls 
of a burned building, and disclose in one place only, 
for three or four feet, the original masonry. Some pe- 
culiar stone circles, barely elevated above the ground 
level, indicate semi-savage abodes of our early ancestors. 

We wandered leisurely about this mountain, to enjoy 
our first unqualified freedom since leaving America. 
Elsewhere the street line, grim wall, impenetrable hedge, 
danger of trespass, had restrained us, and had caused a 
slight mental depression, which, when half slumbering 
on this cool summit, and fanned by fragrant sea breezes, 
we first had opportunity to analyze. We wondered if 
natives ever experienced this constraintive feeling. 
England even in its populous parts has "walks," so 



De Omnibus Rebus 91 

called, ways of prescription or ancient grant, which 
by traversing green fields, and crossing babbling brooks 
offer some relief to street-jaded pedestrians. A few 
patches of open moorland and forest also remain, 
rarely found by strangers. But America surely pos- 
sesses a decided advantage over England in its great 
uninhabited areas, where man may freely commune 
with nature — an advantage likely to continue far be- 
yond our day, notwithstanding a pernicious tendency 
in certain parts to sell or lease vast wilderness tracts 
to millionaires. 



DE OMNIBUS REBUS 

A surprise in many interurban parts of Europe is the 
fewness of scattered houses between the towns and 
villages, a feature which lessens the interest of railway 
travel. Some views disclose no habitations, and many 
sections of New England seem, by comparison, more 
populous. The country people reside mostly in com- 
pact villages whence they emerge to till the soil, instead 
of living in the more scattered American way. In 
England these conditions may have arisen partly from 
the large aristocratic land holdings (seven hundred and 
ten persons now own one-quarter of all England and 
Wales), and partly because the villagers, in early times, 
huddled together for mutual protection, or for protec- 
tion by their powerful over-lords. America's more 
careless pioneers, scornful of the lurking savage, scat- 
tered widely through the forest. Such village segrega- 
tion is noticeable in parts of the English midlands, on 
leaving London from St. Pancras; in journeying from 



92 First Impressions of Europe 

Switzerland to Paris via Dijon; and on leaving Paris 
from the Gare du Nord for Boulogne. It seems less 
marked in western Germany and parts of Switzerland, 
and is usually not found at all along sea-coasts and 
river banks. 

European railways are unduly maligned in America. 
The lines are of better average construction than ours, 
and display a wealth of expensive masonry and grade- 
avoiding tunnels. English trains closely conform to 
schedule time, and passengers can barely note the very 
gentle beginning and cessation of motion at the sta- 
tions. Train speed is not great in Belgium, Holland 
and Switzerland, while in England, on an average, it 
exceeds ours, and in France may be about the same. 
Some fast English expresses cover above two hundred 
miles without stopping, and "slip carriages," un- 
hitched without delaying the train, not infrequently 
accommodate passengers for intermediate stations. 
Many Swiss engines are adapted for alternation be- 
tween the ordinary track and the "rack and pinion." 
The first locomotive, by the way, ever made to run on 
ordinary smooth rails, was Puffing Billy, invented by 
William Hedley in 1813. European trains less fre- 
quently collide, or roll over embankments than do ours, 
for which we find a partial excuse in our greater per 
capita mileage and the annual track-disruption by 
frosts. The commodious foreign stations, which con- 
tain refreshment rooms where liquors may be obtained 
with or without food, are often approached by pictur- 
esque flower beds. In England the want of a general 
checking system is effectually obviated by the numer- 
ous porters, who fairly swarm about, eager, for six- 
pence, to perform about any act short of high treason. 



De Omnibus Rebus 93 

An excellent practice is that of booking special seats in 
advance. Writers have noted the silent reserve of the 
English when casually met in traveling. We found 
them actually chatty, and ready enough to initiate the 
conversational " ice breaking." 

How like a toy train! we thought, as a line of com- 
pact little cars left the Northwestern Station at Liver- 
pool, the engine emitting diminutive whistles or squeaks, 
wholly unlike the American locomotive's unearthly 
screech. The freight or " goods " cars, tiny contriv- 
ances indeed to serve for a great country's transportation 
business, were yet more wonderful to unaccustomed 
eyes. On the Continent the engines vary much in 
construction; a few acquiring through their coloring 
a picturesqueness long lost to American rolling stock. 
Photographs and pictures of places along the line, very 
helpful to inquiring tourists, adorn the compartments 
on English railroads; an advantage, however, which 
certain disadvantages outweigh. Fewer passengers se- 
cure window seats than in America, while partitions 
obstruct the most comfortable sight-line. All things 
considered, American cars on English lines would 
seem a proper combination. On our way to Chester 
the front carriage was twice oddly mentioned as "the 
top of the train." 

The subject of hotels and restaurants is a delicate 
one, opinions varying widely. Personally we think 
that a given sum of money produces a better equivalent 
in food and service in our own large eastern cities than 
in England or Continental countries. English country 
inns, however, although rapidly becoming too high- 
priced, excel, as is generally conceded, those of rural 
America. An element of special service, of adaptation 



94 First Impressions of Europe 

to wishes of particular guests, enters more into the 
management, much as it does with the railways. On 
the Continent, as our hotel service was pre-arranged 
by others, little chance offered for experiment. What 
distressing meals and wretched service, with few ex- 
ceptions, we there endured! Instead of a few good 
dishes, numerous small courses too largely of meat 
often spiced, and yet more often greasy and unsavory, 
were placed before us; and the waiter disappeared so 
long between each course that we feared he had per- 
ished — or hoped he had. Luncheon often occupied an 
hour and a half, and dinner rather more; doubtless 
not too long at a private table with friends, but exas- 
perating when on a strenuous tour, where time was all- 
important. Our last Continental meal, on the dining 
car between Paris and Boulogne, might well have upset 
those contemplating the Channel trip, aside from sub- 
sequent freaks of wind and wave. The dining cars 
generally — a comparatively new institution abroad — 
do not compare favorably with ours. In dear old 
fog-soaked London the bread, although wholesome, 
and the pastry, have, like the metropolitan hats and 
boots, a rather peculiar specific gravity. A lighter 
loaf, although too often sour, is baked on the Continent. 
The meats are everywhere better than the sweets. 
Ice cream is served in unhappily microscopic portions, 
while "ice cream sodas," possibly better avoided in 
any case, are usually mere lofty glasses of unsubstantial 
froth. An American visitor in England, if "sweet- 
toothed," must, unless strawberries be ripe, largely 
forego his native combinations of fresh fruits and 
creams; and cultivate an appetite for marmalade, jam 
tart, and coffee served with boiled milk instead of cream. 



De Omnibus Rebus 95 

The custom at restaurants of charging separately for 
the smallest items, such as cream, when obtainable, 
with coffee, or perhaps even a few lumps of sugar, 
makes a meal of reasonable variety rather costly. The 
waiter searches the table so diligently to find how many 
little bits of bread and butter have been disposed of, 
that you feel like giving him a cuff instead of a tip. A 
London hotel, on our second visit, charged the price of 
a single cigar, mistakenly omitted from the former 
reckoning. It is pleasant, however, when reaching a 
little English inn at some unusual hour, to know that 
the proprietor will bestir himself for your comfort, 
and that the cooks and waiters have not scattered to 
remote ends of the village, as sometimes happens in 
the American country side. After all, between England 
and America, it is a case of chacun a son gout, while 
both countries, we firmly believe, are dietetic Elysiums 
compared with Continental Europe. 

The tipping system, which like other settled customs 
has defenders, seems to us, except in the case of railway 
porters, a pure nuisance. Tip-seekers, greedy for coin, 
haunt all localities. Six-penny and shilling tips become 
expensive, while penny tipping involves the transpor- 
tation of much weight in copper. The politeness of 
officials and servants is partially due to expectation of 
tips, and is therefore metamorphosed beggary. Our 
irreproachable conductor at Warwick Castle, who 
strutted so proudly before us, became, at tipping time, 
as obsequious as any Shoreditch mendicant. 

Yet more real politeness probably prevails in Europe 
than America. How "much-thanked" the traveler 
becomes, whether deserving of it or not! Thanks 
accompany both the giving and receipt of anything. 



96 First Impressions of Europe 

The waiter, requested to bring a napkin (which he 
usually fails to bring without request) thanks you 
heartily for being gracious enough to receive it. One 
fellow, a barber we think, repeated the usual formula, 
" Thank you, thank you, sir," when his back was turned 
to us, and we had said or done nothing to merit ap- 
proval. Should such a man be followed from his day's 
work, he might doubtless be found automatically mut- 
tering " Oh thank you, sir, thank you, thank you." 

The wandering stranger from America's once peace- 
loving shores, having been taught to believe that Eu- 
rope is an "armed camp," naturally looks for frequent 
military movements. In fact, unless special search be 
made, this militarism seldom becomes conspicuous. 
We saw barely five hundred soldiers, all told, and most 
of these were in Switzerland. 

The last "res" in our " de omnibus" very properly 
relates to the weather. This was everywhere cool and 
pleasant, except in journeying from Heidelberg to 
Geneva, where, although the nights were tolerable, 
the mercury at mid-day became much too frisky. 
Nothing, however, approached the discomfort of an 
American " hot wave." In London no trouble arose in 
keeping umbrellas washed, but the numerous showers, 
excepting one deluge in Whitechapel, were not severe. 
We recall no violent electric storms. 

A modified law of supply and demand applies to 
travel. While voyageurs of the Western woods will go 
far to inspect a Trappist monastery, where it overlooks 
the tossing amber-hued cataracts of the Mistassini, 
tourists in Europe pass such things daily with little 
comment or inquiry. New facts are not easily dis- 
covered abroad, as every square mile has undergone 



The Homeward Voyage 97 

minute research. As in wilderness travel the novice, 
stimulated by unwonted environment, sometimes pre- 
sents natural phenomena in a way quite new to veteran 
explorers, we can but hope, as an excuse for recording 
these "First Impressions of Europe," that a novice, 
wandering amid feudal antiquities, may likewise have 
viewed some things in unaccustomed lights. 



THE HOMEWARD VOYAGE 

As the Empress of Britain, sister ship to the Ireland, 
bore us outward at evening past the brown sand banks 
of the outer Mersey, and New Brighton's high tower, 
the Old World's last conspicuous landmark, sank 
gradually below the horizon, a restful feeling followed 
the thought that our much-planned European trip had 
really become a fait accompli. Gulls — who could tell 
how many ? — circled about the stern, and often hovered 
seemingly motionless above the waves; but by morning 
they had departed. No other life, human or infra- 
human, if we except three shapely porpoises that gam- 
bolled playfully in the very middle of the Atlantic's 
great watery waste, greeted our sea-weary eyes until 
we entered the vast St. Lawrence estuary. 

Our long passenger list included men of note. Eng- 
land, Canada and " the States " had about equal repre- 
sentation in the saloon. Baronets abounded; among 
them Sir Charles Tupper, Canada's aged Tory chief- 
tain, bent with political responsibilities and the frosts 
of many winters. Leaning against the taffrail, appar- 
ently watching for porpoises, stood the Lord High 
Chancellor, speaker of the House of Lords, an elderly 
G 



98 First Impressions of Europe 

peer, of dignified and benevolent appearance, as anxious 
to see the frothy whirlpools of Niagara as we had been 
to view the Tower of London. A host of modish girls, 
mostly American, reclined Cleopatra-like on deck chairs 
awaiting the usual Atlantic opportunities. These 
large Canadian boats, as they do not sail directly 
from very populous centres, carry, we believe, a rather 
higher average type of tourist than the more southerly 
lines. The American lady abroad has frequent cause 
to regret that unstable distribution of wealth which 
enables her obtrusive country-women of the common 
class to overrun Europe in annually increasing num- 
bers. Untutored Europeans, other than emigrants, 
seldom travel far from home, so America suffers from 
hastily drawn comparisons. 

On our second day out, although old Neptune, that 
hoary brine-soaked son of Saturn, apparently slum- 
bered and failed to agitate the waters with his tri- 
forked sceptre, two-thirds of the passengers succumbed 
to marine influences. On the fourth day a wireless 
message from the Empress of Ireland, stating that 
Belle Isle was ice-free and the weather clear, removed 
all anxiety about that rather hazardous passage. At 
midnight of the seventh day we stepped upon the 
Quebec dock. The boat-train's conductor would, at 
first, allow but one of our dress-suit cases to be taken 
on the Pullman, the baggage man refused to check 
the other, and a third knowing official announced that 
neither suit-case could be checked without prior search 
by the American customs. This absurd business was 
argued for two hours. At Montreal Junction, where 
we arrived three hours late, the Boston express, al- 
though notified of several American passengers, glided 



The Homeward Voyage 99 

off in plain sight. Such mismanagement as this, 
strongly contrasting with the excellent steamboat ar- 
rangements, temporarily changed our kindly thoughts 
of the home-land to something like profanity; and our 
opinion of European railways rose in proportion. The 
familiar landscape, however, viewed through car win- 
dows of now ample width, proved very soothing. Well 
did old Virgil understand the retrospect of petty human 
tribulations when he added to his epic the famous line — 
"Forsan et hcec ohm meminisse juvabit." 



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